


A Game of Cages

by OfWilsonDreams



Series: Cages [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Slavery, Birdwatching, Blackmail, Breakfast, Cages, Captain John Watson knows how to interrogate people so they want to talk, Case Fic, Charles McCarthy, Coffee, Collars, Episode: s01e03 The Great Game, John Turner - Freeform, John is a Very Good Doctor, John is a slave, John needs regular meals, M/M, Mycroft is a Bit Not Good, Non-Sexual Slavery, Sherlock Holmes needs to eat and sleep, Sherlock Is A Bit Not Good, Sherlock Plays the Violin, Slavery, Story: The Boscombe Valley Mystery, at least non-sexual now but probably not later, riding-crop, searching for the slash, train trips, type two diabetes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-23
Updated: 2014-05-25
Packaged: 2018-01-09 18:32:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 25,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1149391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OfWilsonDreams/pseuds/OfWilsonDreams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mycroft Holmes gave Sherlock Holmes an untrained ex-soldier as a slave. When Sherlock goes to Belarus to correct the grammar of domestic killers, Mycroft claims him back. And things go on from there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Blanched Soldier

John wakes to the faded smell of tobacco and the orange wool of the blanket across his eyes. 

"Wake _up_ , John," Sherlock is saying, impatiently. 

"What?" John sits up, yawning, rubbing his eyes. "What? Yes?"

"I'm going to Minsk. Back in a few days."

Sherlock walks out. John hears him running down the stairs. The silence of the room seems to spread around him like fog. Sherlock was gone away, and John was alone.

After a time he could not measure, John got up. He walked over to the kitchen, opened the fridge, checked the food supplies. His left hand was trembling: he had to steady the kettle with his right. His leg was beginning to ache again. He made tea, and two pieces of toast, and sat at the table relishing that he could eat and drink in peace.

Back in a few days. Two? Three? A week? There was enough food for five days, if he was careful. It was Wednesday today. Next Monday, if Sherlock was still gone, would Mrs Hudson make that life-saving trip to the supermarket?

Yes. She would even if Sherlock wasn't around to ask her, John told himself fiercely, she would because she was like that; she'd been cross with Sherlock before for not getting him food.

He should tell the tall brother that Sherlock had gone to Minsk. (Where was Minsk, anyway? Eastern Europe, somewhere.) He still didn't have a means of getting in touch with him. Maybe he could go out for a walk: the last time he'd been allowed to leave 221 Baker Street, he'd been picked up by the tall brother and interrogated. 

John stands, facing the door. He thinks about walking down the steps, out through the front door, turn left, a couple of hundred yards at most to Regents Park. He could go for a walk. If Mrs Hudson was here, she'd let him back in. He wants to do it, he's afraid to do it: _attempted escape_ is one of the chief crimes a slave can commit, and no court lets a slave testify in their own defense. Evidence is taken from slaves, not given.

But if he can do it, and get away with it, and establish a precedent that he's _allowed_...

John swallows, steadies his shoulders, and moves to the door. He opens it. 

The stairs feel very long. He can hear Mrs Hudson: smell her cooking. Until he walks through the front door, he isn't a runaway by most legal definitions. The moment he steps through the front door, though, he is. Even though he plans to come back.

(At least this time.)

He opens the door, bracing himself. Just a short walk. He isn't going to risk being away for long.  
"  
The tall brother is waiting on the front stoop, leaning on his umbrella. "Ah, John. Very thoughtful of you to come downstairs," he says, smoothly, lifting his umbrella and using it to prod John back into the hall. "As Sherlock's away, I thought I'd offer some assistance."

He steps aside. Two men in suits, not so well-tailored, move in. One of them is holding a leash. John sees the leash. He turns to run. Something snags his ankle and he falls and the two men fall on him.

John is lying on his side, feeling sick and bruised and breathless, when he hears Mrs Hudson snap "What do you think you're doing with him!" And then "Oh, it's you, Mr Holmes. I might have known." She doesn't sound very impressed, and John blesses her silently even while the two men immobilise and leash him.

"John is my property, Mrs Hudson, this is all in order," the tall brother says smoothly. "While Sherlock is away in Belarus, I didn't like to leave John in his flat alone. He might get up to ... " the tall brother's voice hesitates, sounds plummily amused " ...mischief." 

"Well, he can stay with me," Mrs Hudson said. "I'll keep an eye on him. Feed him up." 

"I think not, Mrs Hudson, thank you," the tall brother says, and the tiny ragged flare of hope dies in John. The two men in suits haul him to his feet and one of them is holding the leash. The tall brother is in the car already: the suits push John in like a sack, leaving him lying on his belly on the floor. The woman with her Blackberry is there, but she ignores him.

The tall brother says "John, up on your hands and knees, on all fours."

There is a moment when John thinks about not obeying, but it passes. He crouches in the car on his knees, hands in front of him, looking down. The car whirls him away. He wonders if he's ever going to see the other Holmes again.

"John," the tall brother says. "Pay attention. One of my employees will take you to your kennel. I shall see you when I have time - no doubt there will be some little corrections to make in your behavior - and you will be regularly fed and watered. One of my employees will have you measured. You will comply with anything they require of you."

The car comes to a halt. The car door is opening.

"John," the tall brother says, a warning note in his voice. "I don't have to tell you to remember the cage, do I?"

"No, sir," John said at last. The car door was opening. 

The kennel is a small windowless room with a squat-toilet and a faucet, with a single dim light. There is nothing else in it. John can lie down, but a taller man would have to curl up, probably. John lies down on his back with his head as far away from the squat-toilet as he can get it, and he lies uncomfortably there thinking about the Baker Street apartment.

He isn't going to think of Baker Street as home. He isn't going to miss it.

He does.

\--

The thing of it is, John can understand perfectly well what the tall brother is doing to him, and why. The tall brother wants the younger to have a devoted, grateful slave: therefore, take the slave away and show him just how much worse life could be. 

The thing of it is, it doesn't matter that John can understand what the tall brother is doing to him: it's working.

There are three employees that he's seen: the woman with the Blackberry, the chauffeur-thug, and the thug-with-the-leash. The tall brother lives in an apartment in Whitehall, a tiny plush elevator with hooks for slave leashes on the walls (and a sign saying "tenants are reminded dogs and slaves MUST be kept on the lead inside the building"), a soft red carpet in the hall and a smooth clean floor in the kitchen and the door to the kennel was made of solid wood.

The thug-with-the-leash had taken John crawling to the kennel door, split in two halves, and opened the lower half for John to crawl through it. The floor of the kennel is smooth soft plastic, more comfortable than the cage, and the ceiling is (probably) the same height as the room outside: John can stand upright and can't touch the ceiling, even if he jumps for it. Bigger than the cage.

Still a cage.

After a while, the lower door opens. The tall brother calls "John," and unwilling, John crawls out and crouches there, looking up. The tall man is there, and a woman wearing what looks like a cleaning service uniform, and thug-with-a-leash.

"Colette, this is a slave borrowed from my brother, he can do whatever you require. He may need some instruction in cleaning duties, my brother's flat is far from spotless."

John swallowed. _Your brother would need a cleaning machine to follow him around every minute of the day picking up everything he drops on the floor and the sofa and tidying up all his bloody "experiments" in the kitchen and bagging the laundry he just drops on the floor -_

The tall brother is looking at him, with a smile that suggests unpleasantly that he knows exactly what John is thinking.

"He's been quite spoiled, I'm afraid, my brother is far from being a consistent disciplinarian. If you have any difficulty with him, William is here to provide assistance. John!"

I'm right here, John thinks. He continues to look up at the tall brother. "Yes," he says. "Sir," he adds.

"Work hard," the tall brother advises, with a smirk of his lips. Then he goes out. 

John spends the next two hours cleaning. It's more or less lunchtime, though no one offers him food. Colette turns out to be quite nice, as far as that goes: she tells him what to do, a couple of times shows him how to do it, and lets him get on with his share of the work while she's working in the same room. They finish in the kitchen, where for the first time in hours John gets to stand up, not crawl, because Colette and William want tea. They sit at the kitchen table to drink it, and talk casually about a reality-TV program they're both following, and eat their lunches. John sits on the floor. He isn't particularly hungry, but he'd like a cup of tea.

Then John washes up the cups and dries them, and William puts him back in the kennel, and then nothing happens for a long time. John lies on the floor wanting something to eat, something to do, someone to talk to. 

He wants the other brother back. He wants to be able to look out of a window. He knows what the tall brother is doing to him, he has been on training courses on how to deal mentally with kidnapping and imprisonment. But it doesn't matter that he understands: it's working.

\--

The next time he gets taken out of the kennel, it's late afternoon. William is there, and clips the leash on John's collar as soon as his head appears through the kennel door. Without a word to John, he tugs and walks away and John follows, hastily and awkwardly on all fours, since trying to stand up gets a harsher tug on the leash. As if William doesn't expect John to understand English, out in the hall he pushes John to his feet and clips the leash to a hook on the wall. 

"Mr Holmes wants him measured for a full outfitting," William says to the new person: an elderly man with a pinched face who eyes John as if he's something not worth touching. When the man stoops to measure John from groin to ankle, John says "I'm 27 inches inseam."

Both men look at him with curiously identical expressions of surprise. John adds, "You know, if anyone's interested? I know my shoe size, too."

The elderly man grimaces and stoops to measure John's inseam. William scowls and slaps him. Not very hard, but hard enough to sting. 

John's clenched fists are digging into his thighs. He stares back at William. William is about six inches taller than John, but John's been fighting bigger men all his life. He's pretty sure William's carrying - the bulge under the left armpit is a giveaway - but there are several ways for an unarmed man to get a gun away from an armed man, and John is visualising them all as he stares at William.

"Ah, Kilgour," the tall brother says smoothly, appearing from another room. "Good evening."

"Good evening, Mr Holmes," the elderly man says. 

"Thank you so much for agreeing to come out. What do you think?"

"A pleasure. Your brother's slave isn't much to look at, but he's quite well-made, and I think off a leash he would carry himself well. A quality purchase. We'll do our best for you."

"Did I hear you strike him, William?" the tall brother inquires smoothly.

"He talked back," William says. He smiles, keeping his eyes on John. "And then he looked at me as if he'd like to kill me."

"No doubt," the tall brother agrees pleasantly. "Well, when Mr Kilgour is finished, we'll have to instil some more discipline."

The tall brother shows Kilgour out. William pushes John to all fours and leads him down the hall, back to the kitchen. Within moments, the tall brother appears. 

"Now, John, take your clothes off and bend over the kitchen table."

There is a moment when John doesn't think he'll be able to obey and then he looks at William's mouth, at the tall brother's eyes, and thinks that both of them are hoping he'll fight, that if he doesn't obey he'll get drugged or beaten and he will end up stripped and bent over anyway - 

He gets up, dry-mouthed, and takes his clothes off. Both of them are watching him strip. John doesn't look at them. It's just skin, that's all. It's only humilating if he lets it be. 

Then he looks down at his feet - his skinny, whitish, hairy feet - and he bends over the kitchen table. Now he's looking at his hands and the smooth surface of the table, which isn't wood but red formica, old-fashioned, easy to keep clean. His belly is on the table and his groin just off the edge of it. 

"Lift your buttocks a trifle, John. Hold still."

Being hit with a riding crop hurts just as much as John thought it did. And then it hurts worse.

The third blow leaves him feeling as if he's bleeding. He's pressing his face against the table, his hands trying to clench into it.

"You can get up now, John."

The tall brother is holding a riding crop. He says, "You may go to your kennel now. Leave your clothes."

John keeps himself on his feet. Somehow. He walks, unsteadily, to the door in the wall. It's split in two halves and there are two handles: one, lower down, opens the lower half of the door only. The other seems to open both doors. John tries it. It works. He walks into the kennel, and closes the door behind him, and only then sinks down to his knees and lies on his face on the floor.

\---

The tall brother takes him out of the kennel the next morning. He's had a night to sleep, uncomfortably, on his face: to find out by feel that the welts left by the riding crop did not bleed: for the bruises to stiffen up horribly, so that moving causes pain. It's not cold in the kennel exactly, but it's not warm either, and the kitchen feels colder. 

The tall brother is there with the Blackberry woman. "Breakfast, John," he says. 

"Coffee and toast," the Blackberry woman says.

"Coffee and cereal with fruit and yoghurt," the tall brother says.

"Can I get dressed?" John asks. He's shivering.

"Please," the woman with the Blackberry says, never looking up from the screen.

"You certainly don't look very appetising this morning," the tall brother observes, sitting down at the table. "Wash your hands and face and put on your clothes."

The tall brother is reading through a document from a folder stamped with confidential seals. The Blackberry woman never takes her eyes off her Blackberry. Unlike the kitchen in Baker Street, there is a loaf of bread in the box marked BREAD, coffee in the jar marked COFFEE, there is a glass jar of some expensive-looking cereal in one of the cupboards, there is nothing in the kettle except water, and the fridge contains a carton of yogurt, low-fat milk, fresh fruit, and thankfully no body parts. John's belly rumbles as he smells the toast.

The doorbell rings. 

"Answer the door, John," the tall brother says, not looking up.

At the door: the thug from yesterday, not William, the other one the chauffeur-thug, carrying two huge plastic bags, which he hands to John and shoulders his way inside and closes the door. 

"You have time for coffee, Raymond," the tall brother says. "John made enough for three. John, there is a bathroom to the left of the kitchen, clean yourself up and change into your new clothes."

All of the clothes are new, high street brand names. There is enough to wear to keep John going for a week between trips to the launderette. All of the clothes fit. They bear some kind of resemblance, even, to clothes John might have chosen for himself, if he was a civilian.

There is a very modern shower in the bathroom. And a complete set of white fluffy towels. And shampoo and conditioner. And an electric razor. 

Showered, shaved, hair washed and finger-combed tidy, John reports back to the kitchen to find the coffee drunk, plates in the sink, and a bowl of slave kibble on the floor. 

"Kneel down and eat that quickly, John, we have only a few minutes. Raymond, would you mind tidying John's hair for him while he eats?"

"Messy pup," Raymond mutters. But he gets up. And John realises: he won't get anything to eat unless he does go on his knees to eat that bowl of dull greyish-brown biscuit, and he isn't going to complain or fight back at having a stranger roughly comb his hair tidy. Because he can still feel the long harsh bruises from yesterday's riding crop under his clothes. 

\--

The tall brother works in the Treasury department. In the outer office, there is a hook for slave leashes and a space for slaves to kneel. Raymond-the-thug stays outside with the car, and the woman working at the front desk in this office is an ordinary-looking civil servant who says nothing to John all day, rarely speaking even to the staff who come in and out.

John discovers after about half an hour that he's being so completely ignored that he can shift position to something a bit more comfortable, and a few minutes after that that, that sitting on his buttocks a few hours after a beating with a riding-crop is not a comfortable option after all. Kneeling close to the wall so that he can lean against it and the leash loose between the collar and the fastening on the wall, it's almost possible to relax, and he is just horribly, appallingly bored. He gets fed at lunchtime, another bowl of kibble and a bottle of water, delivered by the Blackberry woman, who barely looks at him.

It's better than the kennel. Which was better than the cages.

The brothers Holmes _own_ him. This is his life: either trapped in the Baker Street flat with Sherlock's whims, or leashed and ignored in Mycroft's flat. This is the rest of his _life_. 

By the end of the day, John's left hand is shaking uncontrollably, and he sees Mycroft Holmes notice that with a slightly raised eyebrow. They go to a restaurant for dinner - Mycroft and Blackberry woman, whose name John still hasn't learned. The thug-chauffeur who drives them there is William, John thinks. The restaurant staff ask if John is wanted at the table, and when Mycroft says no, lead him off to a cage in the cloakroom where there are three other slaves already leashed.

"No talking," the man says as he pushes John inside. 

The other slaves are silent. The cloakroom staff, John sees, can hear them from the counter. John leans against the cage wall in the semi-darkness and shoves his left hand between his knees to try to still the shaking, and doesn't cry. 

They can smell the food being served. John is hungry, but it doesn't seem to matter. None of the slaves say anything. John's hand is still shaky when they come to collect him.

"Bring John to the sitting-room, and wait until I call you," Mycroft says. Blackberry-woman has gone home. "I shan't keep you long."

William pushes John to his knees - he's still never said a word to John directly - in the middle of a small sitting-room with pleasant, comfortable, rather formal furnishings. Mycroft is over by the drinks cabinet, pouring himself a small glass of something. William left the room, closing the door.

"Well, John," Mycroft said. He sat down, making himself comfortable, and lifted the glass, seeming to admire the light through it. "How is your bottom? Agonising, I should imagine."

"Yes, sir," John said, though gritted teeth.

"My brother has never been a very accomplished disciplinarian. Rely on me to give you the structure that, as a slave, you need." Mycroft smiled, but his voice was completely humourless. "I can assure you that everyone in my employ has now been informed that if they strike you, no matter how lightly, you are ordered to fight back."

John stared, bewildered.

"You were quite rightly disciplined for being impertinent yesterday," Mycroft says. "As a slave you should know you keep quiet unless you are directly invited to speak. For example, a good slave would have known the answer to my inquiry about the state of your bottom was a polite lowering of the eyes, a demure smile, and - if pressed to speak - gratitude for my interest. Not a surly 'yes, sir'. But it is not in my interest nor in my brother's interest that you should lose your ..." he hesitated, gesturing slightly with his glass "...ahem, your 'fighting spirit'? I should warn you not to be impertinent or you will be punished. But I assure you, if William or anyone else were to try to hit you, you will be stringently protected from punishment when you defend yourself. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sir," John said, levelly.

"Well done, John, not quite as surly. Do you have any questions?"

"How - how long will I be here?"

"That's a very impertinent question. You will spend most of your time here in the kennel. You may already have noticed the emergency button to the right of the door, quite high up but within your reach? If you are suffering a medical emergency or the door has not been opened to let you out for twenty-four hours, you may press that button. Either I or one of my staff will hear the alarm. In the event that none of us are available, after a short delay it goes to the emergency services. If you press it and there is no emergency, you will of course be seriously punished. Has my brother shown any sexual interest in you?"

Startled, John stared, swallowed, tried to think of an answer. "I don't know," he said finally. "I don't think so."

He expected a further interrogation, but Mycroft only stared at him intently. "Interesting," he said finally. "I have no idea how long my brother will remain in Eastern Europe, I imagine it depends on how much he finds to interest himself there. I shall return you to his lodgings when he himself returns."

"How - how do I get in touch with you? To report? Sir?" John asked.

"That will be arranged," Mycroft said. "I'm quite pleased with your service so far, John. Don't fret. Now go and ask William to take you back to the kennel. Don't forget to strip your clothes off and fold them neatly before you enter the kennel: we don't want to get your new clothes messy."

\--

Sleeping naked on a cold floor without a blanket, after a day of inactivity, was difficult and awkward, trying to find a more comfortable position. John catnapped, shifted, only aware he had managed a few minutes of sleep when he heard himself snore or caught himself waking up. When Raymond called him out into the kitchen, it wasn't even daylight yet, and no one offered him a shower or food or coffee. 

Clothes. Still where he had left them folded tidily. Two suitcases - cheap, large, lightweight things. John picked them both up and Raymond clipped the leash on. The day was just dawning as the car drove towards Baker Street, with cases and John shoved into the back like luggage.

John knew what Mycroft had been trying to do to him. He understood the process of breaking down a kidnap victim. 

Understanding didn't help. Because it had worked. He was glad to be going home.


	2. Valley of Fear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charles McCarthy has been murdered. The murder suspect's best friend has summoned Sherlock Holmes. Can John Watson be of use? Will he ever want to be again?

John climbed the stairs to 221b. He wasn't sure what the time was, but it couldn't be seven yet - Speedy's Cafe opened 7 to 3. He could hear Mrs Hudson moving about - must be after six.

There was no one in 221b. The other Holmes might be on his way back, but he wasn't there yet. With apprehension, John checked the downstairs bedroom, but it was empty, the covers thrown back and cold. Not at home, then.

John sighed with huge relief and filled the kettle. There was bread, a bit stale but it would do for toast. He'd do the dishes. When the morning rush was over at Speedy's, he'd go down and borrow Mrs Hudson's vacuum. His left hand was trembling: he tucked it into his jeans pocket and stood waiting for the kettle to boil. 

The other Holmes walked very quietly. John saw him coming down the stairs from the upper room out of the corner of his eye, and sucked in a breath and clenched his fist and turned to say calmly, "What about that Russian case?"

Sherlock smirked at him. "Belarus. Open and shut domestic murder. Not worth my time."

"Ah, shame." John kept his left hand safe in his pocket. "Tea?"

"Shan't have time to drink it. Lestrade texted about the Boscombe Valley murder. How long did you spend with my brother?"

John swallowed. He kept his voice level. "He collected me from here the day you left."

"Did you enjoy yourself?"

"No," John said, turning back to the kettle. He swallowed hard. "No, I didn't." His ass still hurt. 

"I'll be away for a couple of days. Try not to get kidnapped." 

The kettle boiled. John poured the steaming water on to the teabag. He saw the flood of brown overwhelm the clear. He saw himself ducking the teabag out of the mug, adding milk, just a bit. Sitting at the table drinking the tea. Watching Sherlock Holmes walk out again, to be gone for (a day? two days? three?) and to wait alone in the sitting-room for the taller Holmes to arrive and take him back to that small kennel in his plush apartment. Or, if not, to spend days by himself, seeing no one, talking to no one, cooking small plain meals by himself.

"Can I come with you?"

"And do what?"

"Anything," John said. He swallowed. "I'll do whatever you want - whatever you say."

"I don't think you've quite grasped the point, John," Sherlock said after a moment. "You're a slave. You _will_ do whatever I want. I told you to stay here."

John swallowed. He fished the teabag out of the hot water, feeling it burn his fingers without compunction. "You don't need a slave," he said.

"Tell that to Mycroft."

"I'm a doctor," John said, thinly, hopefully. "Maybe I could be useful."

"You're an army doctor." There was a shrug of dismissal in his voice. "If anything, I need a forensics specialist. Or a pathologist." He paused. "Can you be packed in half an hour?"

John turned, suddenly hopeful, and found Sherlock far too close behind him, his nose almost in John's hair. Looking down at him, like a stooping predator, now John's face was turned towards him. "Mycroft knew when I was leaving the country because he has my passport monitored. He has no reason to know I'm leaving for Hereford. You'll probably get to stay here - the case shouldn't take me more than a couple of days."

"The case?"

"But, if you can be packed and ready to go in half an hour, I might take you with me. I doubt if you'll be useful. But it might be interesting to find out." Sherlock did not move. 

Neither did John, staring up at him. 

"Twenty-eight minutes, John. Take those cases up to your room."

John had been about to say, reflexively, that he didn't have anything to pack. But he had the clothing bought for him. And - aeons ago, it seemed - Sherlock had told Mrs Hudson that of course John would be using the upstairs room. He had been up there to look at it once before, when Sherlock had left him in the apartment alone: it was a bleak, dusty, chilly space.

He opened the door and found the room transformed.

The floorboards had been covered: the room was furnished, with a single bed, a wardrobe, and a desk with a chair - plain, solid, cheap furnishings, but _furniture_. John opened up the wardrobe to put the clothes away and found shrink-wrapped bedding from a London department store, and a military-issue backpack. There was a wind-up alarm clock on the desk. In the drawer of the desk there was a laptop computer and a mobile phone. John stared down at them, really shocked - and then not shocked. Mycroft had said communication would be arranged. 

How long had he been up here? John grabbed clothing from the cases, clean clothes for the next two or three days, and shoved it into the backpack. He dropped the phone in, too, and the charger. He wouldn't let Sherlock know he had it, but he could let Mycroft know where Sherlock was if he could figure out how to use it. How hard could that be? Mycroft would have left his number in the phone.

There was a jacket hanging up on the hook behind the door - a battered black coat with epaulets, vaguely military but not ex-army issue. John grabbed it too and was shouldering into it on his way downstairs, clutching at the backpack.

He had _furniture_. He had something to get back to. He knew the risks of feeling like this, but he was still smiling when he reached the foot of the stairs.

Sherlock turned and held out his hand. "Give it to me."

"What?"

"The phone, John. Give it to me." He plucked the backpack out of John's hand, unceremoniously tipped the contents on the floor, and scooped up the phone. "You now have five minutes to re-pack," he added, and flung himself down on the couch. When John glanced up, he was texting.

"Ready," John announced. Sherlock swirled to his feet again, pointed at an overnight bag, and was gone through the door and clattering down the stairs while John grasped that he was to carry it. 

Outside, a taxi appeared as if by magic, and Sherlock said "Paddington," to the driver, and then nothing more. Sherlock had never made him kneel in a taxi: John sat down on the back seat, pressed into the cab wall, and watched Sherlock surreptitiously, out of the corner of his eye. 

Sherlock collected tickets from an automatic machine and swirled through the rush-hour crowds, John keeping in his wake. They boarded a first-class carriage and Sherlock went directly to a four-seat table and sat down, taking the overnight bag from John. John sat down on the seat opposite and glanced around the carriage, which was filling up. Sherlock shoved the bag back at John - he had taken out a sheaf of computer print-out. He was still wearing his long black coat, but he told John "Put the luggage and your jacket on the rack."

It was perfectly warm in the carriage. John obeyed. Sherlock glanced back when he sat down again, studying him. "Lean forward, John," he said.

John frowned at him. Sherlock made an impatient gesture with his right hand. John flushed, but leaned forward, planting his folded arms on the table between them. Sherlock reached out and undid his top shirt buttons. "Stay there," he said, already looking away, at the papers which were rapidly covering the table.

"Excuse me," a polite voice said. "I think you'll find this _is_ my seat - " 

John looked up, startled. A man in a grey suit with a dark blue tie and a very white shirt, carrying a briefcase, was looking at John - and as John looked up, the man went red, then pale. He didn't say anything, but he frowned and turned away and John saw him move to another seat.

He had seen John's collar. John sat still. He hadn't seen John: he had seen a slave, occupying a reserved seat in a first-class carriage.

"Sherlock," John murmured.

"Shut up. Sit still," Sherlock said. He hadn't even looked up from the papers he was examining closely. The train moved off. John sat still, watching London move past the train windows. Sherlock had obviously intended John's collar to be visible. There were three reserved seats at this table. Even if the first passenger didn't make trouble, the second might, or the ticket collector would. Trouble for Sherlock, technically, but John could feel the anticipatory cringe.

"Tickets, please," the collector said. She looked at John too, and saw the collar, and looked at Sherlock, who was, with blessed promptness, fishing the tickets out of his coat pockets, and holding them out to be inspected, without taking his attention of the papers.

"Excuse me, sir," the collector said. Sherlock looked up.

"Your slave should really go in the guard's van. We have a pen there for transport - "

"If I'd wanted my slave to travel in the guard's van I would have paid for a baggage ticket," Sherlock said, loudly and clearly. "Since I paid for two first-class tickets and reserved two seats, I am entitled to have my slave travel with me for my convenience. Is that clear?"

The ticket collector gave Sherlock a look that spoke volumes, but all she said was "Very clear, sir, but you realise that your slave is not entitled to occupy a seat if a free person should require it."

"There would appear to be plenty of free seats in this carriage, and this train is always busiest when it has just left London, so I cannot imagine that to be the case. Go away."

John sat still. The train was speeding through London's outer limits and out into the greenbelt. It was a beautiful day. The seat was thoroughly comfortable. John could feel the collar round his throat. Reading, then Oxford, and Sherlock was either reading or rummaging through the litter of papers or staring off into the middle distance, plainly paying no attention to John or to anyone else who passed by and stared at the slave sitting at the first class table. A trolley serving hot drinks and snacks came by twice: both times the man pushing it looked at John, then at Sherlock, and said nothing. 

The train left Oxford. Sherlock suddenly rolled the immense litter of papers into a gigantic ball, and shoved them up into the rack. “Have you heard anything of the case?” he asked.

It took a moment before John remembered the ostensible reason they were on this train at all: Sherlock had referred to a Boscombe Valley murder. He found himself grinning, bitterly. “I haven't seen the news for a few days."

Sherlock shrugged. “The London media doesn't report provincial murders at all thoroughly. I've just been looking through all the recent papers and the inquest report in order to master the particulars. It seems to be one of those simple cases which are so extremely difficult. The more featureless and commonplace a crime is, the more difficult it is to bring it home. In this case, however, they have established a very serious case against the son of the murdered man."

The trolley was passing again. Sherlock waved at the man. "Coffee, black, two sugars. Tea, milk, no sugar."

John drank the tea and fixed an interested expression on his face and listened to Sherlock explain: Charles McCarthy, who had been killed, was an Australian immigrant and a widower with a son aged eighteen. McCarthy was a keen birdwatcher, an unsociable man: he had been last seen alive in Boscombe Pool nature reserve, about a quarter mile from his home, and three witnesses said that his son, home from his first term at university in Bristol, had been following him. The third witness, a teenage girl, had been in the birdwatching hide by the lake, and said she saw Jim McCarthy having an argument with his father that had scared her so much she crept out of the hide and ran to the information centre to say she was afraid they were going to fight. Shortly afterwards, Jim McCarthy himself came running to the centre to tell them he had found his father dead in the woods. They found Charles McCarthy's dead body lying on the grass beside the pool. his head beaten in by repeated blows of some heavy object. The weapon had not been found, but Jim McCarthy's hand and sleeve were stained with fresh blood. Jim McCarthy was arrested and is being held for murder."

John didn't have to pretend to be interested. "What did they quarrel about?"

"Good, John," Sherlock said. "Jim McCarthy won't say. But he did make one statement after he was arrested."

"What was it?"

"The inspector told him he was under arrest," Sherlock said, "and Jim McCarthy said he was not surprised to hear it and it was no more than he deserved."

"He confessed?"

"No," Sherlock said. "He went on to say that he didn't kill his father."

"Still seems a suspicious thing to say."

"That's what the police and the magistrates thought, too," Sherlock said. "You're all idiots. However innocent Jim McCarthy might be, he would have to be an absolute imbecile not to see that the circumstantial evidence pointed to him. If he had appeared surprised or indignant, that would have been highly suspicious, because such surprise or anger would not be natural under the circumstances, and yet might appear to be the best policy to a scheming man. His frank acceptance of the situation marks him as either an innocent man, or else as a man of considerable self-restraint and firmness."

"Or an absolute imbecile," John said, drinking the last of his tea.

Sherlock looked genuinely and suddenly amused for a moment. "True. As to his remark about his deserts, it was also not unnatural if you consider that he had seen his father dead and their last exchange of words had been a violent quarrel. The self-reproach and contrition which are displayed in his remark would seem to be the signs of a healthy mind rather than of a guilty one."

"So, you think he didn't do it?" 

Sherlock frowned, as if offended, though John had phrased the question as neutrally as possible. "I shall take nothing for granted until I have the opportunity of looking personally into it," he announced. 

Posh git, John thought, and picked up the empty paper cup to hide his expression. 

"The largest landowner in Boscombe Valley is John Turner, who was born in the UK, moved to Australia as a young man, made a substantial fortune, and returned to Hereford, where he's now one of the most prosperous landlords in the county. He is a widower, with one daughter, eighteen years old, who has just returned from her first term at Cambridge. Charles McCarthy was one of John Turner's tenants: and Alice Turner and James McCarthy are, it seems, on terms of close affection." He paused. "Did you know that you have a very expressive face, John? Merely holding that ridiculously small container in front of it doesn't conceal your disbelief. I know that Alice Turner is fond of Jim McCarthy and doesn't believe he killed his father, because she is my client."

"We're here because an eighteen-year-old girl asked for you?" _With a crush on her best friend?_

“Circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing," Sherlock said, studying John. "It may seem to point very directly at one thing, but if you shift your own point of view a little, you may find it pointing in an equally uncompromising manner to something entirely different. For example, circumstantial evidence pointed to your being an agent of my brother's posing as a slave to spy on me."

"But I'm not - "

"But you really are a slave. And my brother really did buy you to spy on me. A remarkably crude attempt, for Mycroft. You can cover up your collar now. You'll probably be of more use to me if you're not known to be a slave. Take this."

A small wad of bills - a couple of hundred pounds. 

"If you use this to run away, Mycroft will eventually find you, and you'll end up somewhere far worse than my flat," Sherlock said blandly. He glanced up. "Get our things, John, don't be slow." He got up briskly, and John realized the train was pulling into Hereford.

The ball of papers came apart when John took it down from the rack. He struggled to shove it all into his backpack: there was a big wodge of paper that he finally stuck into his pocket, shouldered his backpack, picked up Sherlock's bag, and raced off the train. Sherlock was standing on the platform, his hands shoved into his pockets, looking most thoroughly fed-up. 

"Let's go, John."

By the entrance to the platform, a young woman stood, holding a piece of cardboard with HOLMES written on it in large clear capitals. She was, John thought, very lovely and very young: and her eyes lit up as Sherlock went towards her.

"You must be Miss Turner," Sherlock said.

The girl's eyes flicked to John. As if he was responding to her glance, Sherlock added "This is my colleague, Doctor John Watson."

"I'm so glad you have come, Mr Holmes," the girl said. "The car's just outside. I booked a room for you in at the Hereford Arms, and I can drive you there at once - unless you would rather go to the nature reserve immediately."

"No," Sherlock said.

The car was a new-ish Range Rover, with a clutter of things in it. Sherlock got into the back seat, and gestured John into the front. John put the bags in beside Sherlock and climbed in beside the young woman.

"I know that Jim didn’t do it, Mr Holmes," the young woman said, starting the car up very smoothly. "I _know_ it, and I want you to start upon your work knowing it, too. Never doubt it. I've known Jim for as long as either of us can remember, and I know what he's like - he couldn't have done anything like this to _anyone_. He's tender-hearted. His father's appalling. I'm sorry, I know you shouldn't speak ill of the dead, but I'm not even sorry he's dead - Jim loved him, but he was a really appalling man. Jim was an expert in dealing with him. Excuse me, can't talk now." Just outside the station was a concatenation of pedestrian crossings, road junctions, and traffic lights. The young woman fell silent, her lips tense, and she grinned triumphantly as she got through it. "I know Jim's faults as no one else does. It's absurd to think he would kill anyone, let alone his father."

“I hope we may clear him, Miss Turner,” Sherlock said at last. John glanced back. The man still looked slightly bored. "You may rely upon my doing all that I can.”

“But you've read the evidence? I sent you the coroner's report? Do you think he's innocent?”

“I think it's very probable.” Sherlock's deep voice sounded very certain.

The girl swallowed. They were outside the main part of the town, driving on a road half suburb and half country. The young woman turned into a lay-by and parked. "I'm sorry," she said, lunging for the car door. "I'll be back in five minutes."

"Sit still, John," Sherlock said.

The girl walked off from the car to a fence over a muddy field with horses: she stood, her back turned to the car, staring out. John could see her shaking.

The folded paper that he hadn't been able to fit in his backpack had been different from the rest. Sherlock was staring off into space, looking bored and annoyed. Surreptitiously, John pulled it out of his pocket, unfolded it, and found he was holding the coroner's report. John was used to scanning formal reports to pull out the essential information. Jim Mccarthy had told a jumbled story that sounded like a mix of truth and lies - a confused young man in over his head, trying to clear himself. He admitted his father had called "Cooeee!" to direct him to the pond in the nature reserve, but claimed his father hadn't even known he was back from Bristol - hadn't been expecting him. He claimed to have seen a gray coat lying on the ground as he ran to his gravely-injured father, but no one else had seen this coat, and young McCarthy said it had gone by the time he ran for help. He claimed that the quarrel could have nothing to do with his father's death, but refused to tell the coroner what it was about. 

The girl turned around and came back to the car. She looked tired, relieved, and still emotional. "I'm so sorry, Mr Holmes, Doctor Watson. I've been so worried - so afraid - " 

"It's all right," John said gently, though he didn't think it was or would be. 

"Dad is ill. He hasn't been strong for years. He and Mr McCarthy were friends, I suppose - they knew each other when they both worked in Victoria, before they were married. Doctor Willows says he mustn't have any shocks or disturbances, he's got a bad heart - "

"Did you say your father and Charles McCarthy knew each other in Victoria?" Sherlock interrupted. 

"Yes," the girl said. "Is that important?"

"Very. Was your father involved in the wine industry?"

"Oh no, that was Mr McCarthy. Dad used to be a sheepfarmer."

The coroner's report burned in John's pocket. The girl was glowing with hope. 

John cleared his throat. After all, what could Sherlock do to him here? "I'm afraid my colleague has been a little quick in his conclusions."

"But he is right!" Alice Turner turned the glow on John. "I know that he is right. Jim never did it. And I know what the coroner says about the quarrel, but I'm sure I know why Jim wouldn't say what it was about - because it was about me."

“In what way?” Sherlock asked.

"Jim and his dad argued about me a lot." Alice was flushed with anger and embarrassment. "I couldn't go to the inquest - dad was too ill - but I was furious with Jim that he hadn't told, it's no time for hiding things. Mr McCarthy wanted Jim to marry me. He used to joke about it when we were small - we've always played together, their farm and our land run together into the nature reserve, it was like our private kingdom when we were small, Jim was my best friend since before I can remember - but when I came home for the holidays after I was sixteen Jim told me that his dad wasn't joking about it any more, he was dead serious. Jim hated fighting with his father, but he had to about this, of course."

"Did your father want you to marry Jim McCarthy?"

"No. No one except Mr McCarthy wanted it." She blushed. 

“Thank you for the information,” Sherlock said. 

The girl nodded and started the car. 

The Hereford Arms wasn't far away. “I want to see your father tomorrow,” Sherlock said, as she parked the car just outside the front door.

"I'm sorry, Doctor Willow won't allow it. Dad is really ill. I need to go home - I left him having a rest after lunch, but he'll be missing me when he wakes up. You will tell me if you have any news tomorrow. Will you go to the prison to see Jim? If you do, Mr Holmes, do tell him that _I_ know he's innocent."

"Very well, Miss Turner," Sherlock said gravely. "You've been of material assistance to me. Can you obtain one more item of information for me?" 

"Of course, if I can - "

"I need to know what rent Charles McCarthy paid for the farm he rented from your father."

He got out of the car, ignoring their bags. John reached in to get them. The girl said, breathlessly, "I'll find out about the rent. Goodbye. Good luck. Thank you again."

Sherlock was ahead of him. The foyer of the hotel was old-fashioned English gentility: old armchairs and dried flowers, polished oak floor reflecting the sunlight from the mullioned windows. The modern reception desk was incongruous. Sherlock was checking in, speaking brusquely and looking very withdrawn. He walked away from the desk without bothering to say goodbye to the receptionist, who wished them a pleasant stay, and loped ahead of John up the curving wooden stairs to the second floor.

The room had a single bed and a double. Sherlock was lying, fully-clothed, on the double bed, hands together as if he was praying, staring up at the ceiling, silent. John closed the door and stood for a liitle while, watching Sherlock do nothing. His eyes looked colourless, like balls of glass. When it was clear that Sherlock wasn't going to move or speak, John shrugged. There was tea, instant coffee, and packets of cookies, on a tray with a small kettle. John went into the little bathroom and filled the kettle. He'd make tea, have a cookie instead of lunch, unpack. In the bathroom, he switched on the light and very quickly checked the cash Sherlock had handed him: two hundred pounds, in twenty and ten pound notes. Mycroft couldn't know just where they were, and Sherlock was obviously distracted, and no one here knew John was a slave - 

"You wouldn't stand a chance," Sherlock called from the outer room. Disconcerted, John came back out, carrying the kettle. Sherlock was sitting up on the bed, cross-legged, grinning like a fiend. "If you're going to run away, John, a small town is the worst possible place to do it."

John plugged the kettle in and switched it on. "Tea?" he asked.

"Won't have time to drink it," Sherlock said. "There's a murder scene." He leapt off the bed. "Tell the receptionist to book a taxi for us, we'll go out to Boscombe Valley right away!"

The taxi driver told them about the murder, at length. "It was his son who did it. Always seemed a nice young man, but you never know, do you? You won't be able to get into half the nature reserve, it's closed off by the police. Still, what you can see is nice enough. Dreadful violence these days, I blame the parents..."

Sherlock got out of the the taxi at the entrance gate, heading towards a building marked Information Center, and left John to pay the taxi fare and collect a card with the firm's number on it. Sherlock had retrieved a map of the reserve and John trotted to catch up. The path to the pond where the body had been found was pleasant and quiet: John caught himself enjoying the green silence, the absence of traffic noise. Up ahead, there was a place where a boy had beaten his father to death. 

"Why did you tell Alice Turner you thought Jim McCarthy is innocent?"

"Because he is," Sherlock said. "He may know who did it, and be shielding them - but he didn't commit the murder."

"But you can't hope to clear him," John said. He glanced sideways at Sherlock, and caught a cold look. "You raised Alice Turner's hopes, but all the evidence says her friend's guilty. It was cruel."

"You looked at the inquest report," Sherlock said. "If you had read it thoroughly, you would have seen that Jim McCarthy is innocent. There was someone else at the scene."

"Oh yes, he claimed he saw a coat, but no one else did."

"And his father called out 'Cooee', though he didn't know his son was there: and as his father was dying, Jim McCarthy told the coroner that he mumbled a few words, of whch the young man could only understand 'a rat'. You and the coroner credit him with both too much and too little imagination: too little to be able to concoct a reason for the quarrel that would not incriminate him, too much, to be able to invent details about coats on the grass and dying words about a rat."

"Do you think he saw a rat?"

"No." Sherlock stopped and pulled out his phone. with a few clicks, he brought up a map, and showed it to John. It was of Australia. He expanded the size of the map, zooming in to the state of Victoria, further in, until the screen showed a town called Ararat. He placed his thumb on the screen, concealing the first two letters. "As soon as I read that a man who had spent time in that part of Australia had died mumbling about 'a rat', I thought he may have been referencing the place where he lived. As I thought: Ararat. The principal industries of Ararat are wine and sheep. There was a huge boom in wool about twenty years ago - many sheep farmers made considerable fortunes. That was when Charles McCarthy and John Turner came back to England. John Turner is a very wealthy but prudent man."

"How can you know?"

"His daughter's car is a Range Rover, at least three years old. She has only just got her licence - you saw how she was nervous of driving from the station, a route any local driver would know well? The car was an 18th birthday present, a generous but not reckless gift. Obviously, from her father."

"How do you know it's her own car?" 

"She has a Wycombe Abbey School sticker on the dashboard, and the cardboard air freshener was a livid pink that no one but a teenage girl or a woman in the media industry would choose."

Ahead, incongruous in the peaceful woodland path, there was a yellow crime scene tape. Sherlock ducked under it and went on. John hesitated, but followed. From around a fold in the path a young policeman appeared. "You can't come through here, sir - "

Sherlock stopped, fished out an ID card, and held it up. 

"Oh," the policeman said. "Sorry, sir. And this is....?" He looked at John.

"My colleague," Sherlock said, and walked on briskly. John glanced back at the policeman and followed. Sherlock looked excited. Actually, physically, excited. His nostrils were dilated, his shoulders bowed, his face bent downward, and his eyes fixed on the ground. He moved fast and silently down the path ahead of John, at several points stopping dead to stare down at the ground. The path was damp and there were many footprints. 

The first time he stopped, and John caught up to him, he said casually "I'm surprised - " He'd meant to say, surprised that a private detective licence would get Sherlock on to a crime scene, but he didn't get a chance to finish the sentence: Sherlock snarled "Shut up!" and John fell silent. After that, he stayed well back, and stayed on the path when Sherlock ran a detour out into the reedy grass. 

The path opened out into a muddy, foot-torn meadow by a pond about fifty yards across. John stayed at the edge of the meadow. He could see the spot where McCarthy had been killed from where he was standing. The woods grew close to the pond, and above the woods John could see the upper storeys of a big house built of red stone. Sherlock darted about the meadow and the trampled grass and mud, looking - John thought with private, inappropriate amusement - more like a big dog let off the leash than he'd want to know. He was bent double, practically sniffing at the grass, running behind the trees, circling the pond as if he were picking up a scent.

There were footsteps on the path behind him: John turned. Two uniformed police and a dapper, brisk man in plain clothes were coming up the path. One of the police was the man who'd been on guard by the crime scene tape. "That's him," he said, indicating John. "The 'colleague'. The other had detective Lestrade's ID - "

"Well, young man, I don't think you're Sherlock Holmes, are you?" the plain-clothed man said. He sounded like an officer. John found himself falling into parade rest. He swallowed. His collar was hidden.

"No, sir - John Watson."

Sherlock came plunging up, looking calmer.

"I am Inspector Martin, the officer in charge of this case," the plain-clothes man said. "And you must be Sherlock Holmes." He lifted his hand. "Now, sir, I think we should begin by your surrendering Inspector Lestrade's ID which, I'm choosing to assume, you mistakenly showed Constable Hawkins here to obtain access to the crime scene."

Sherlock shrugged. He fished into his pocket and produced the ID, flipping it overhand towards the inspector, who caught it neatly, glanced at it, and tucked it into the inside pocket of his coat. "Thank you, sir. I'll return that to Scotland Yard. I called Inspector Lestrade after Constable Hawkins contacted me, and he told me that while this was my case, and my manor, and it was entirely up to me if I wanted to arrest you for impersonating the police, I might not regret it if I gave you five minutes on my crime scene and then listened to everything that you had to say."

Sherlock opened his mouth.

"He added that I should try not to punch you," Inspector Martin said. "I'm sure that won't be necessary, will it, sir?"

"What did you go into the pool for?" Sherlock asked.

"What?" Martin looked startled. "I fished about with a rake, searching for the weapon - "

"Your left foot has an inward twist," Sherlock said. "You tramped about the edge, and every so often, your footmarks vanish inside the reeds. This would have been very simple if I'd been here before you and your officers trampled like a herd of buffalo all over it. McCarthy was killed there. This path is where the first party came with the stretcher to recover the body. They covered all tracks for six or eight feet around the body. But there are three seperate tracks of the same feet - young McCarthy's, I should judge: he is six foot tall, has an even stride, and wears New Balance running shoes. On his first trip out he went out into the grasslands beside the path, probably to look for a black-tailed godwit. Twice this young man walked at an even pace, and once he ran swiftly back - on the third track the soles are deeply marked and the heels are hardly visible." He pointed over at the meadow. "Over there by the pond, there are the remains of Charles McCarthy's footmarks as he walked up and down beside the pond. He and his son met for their quarrel _there_ \- by the westward end of the pond - where both their tracks meet, and where the young man stood still for some time, grinding his feet into the earth as his father shouted at him. Then young McCarthy turns and walks away, and his father walks back and forth again, but there is the _third_ set of footmarks - did you see them?"

"I did not," Inspector Martin said, with - John thought - remarkable self-control.

"Over there, under that great beech, the footmarks of a man who wore remarkable boots - square-toed, leather-soled, I think hand-made to his specifications. He waited there for some time. He ran forward once, and his square-toed boots vanish into the buffalo-herd of track marks around McCarthy's body. He ran back, and he returned - of course, that was for the cloak. Then he vanished into the woods behind the pond, where his tracks disappear among beech leaves. A bloodhound might trace him, though you have probably left it too late. That man killed Charles McCarthy. He's a tall man, left-handed, limps with the right leg, wears thick-soled shooting-boots that he has made to order, and a grey cloak, smokes Indian cigars, uses a cigar-holder, and carries a blunt pen-knife in his pocket."

"What?" 

"And not far from the tree, where the killer dropped it, you will find the weapon with which the murder was done."

" _What?_ "

"There is a stone, lying on the grass between the beech and the lake path. It was picked up beneath the beech tree - there are traces of the leafmould still on it. It has no marks on it, but the grass is growing under it, so it has not been there for long. It corresponds in shape and weight with the injuries inflicted. There is no sign of any other weapon."

Martin glanced at the two constables. "Hopkins," he said. "Take an evidence bag, go over to where Mr Holmes is pointing, and if you find this stone - "

"Yes, sir," Hopkins said, with an expression of raging disbelief. He went carefully, though, round the edge of the meadow.

"Mr Watson," Martin said. "Did you go on to the meadow at any point?"

"No," John said.

"I'll want prints of your shoes, Mr Holmes, and your colleague's, just to be sure. And we'll take a look at the meadow again and see if we can find these tracks you say you've seen."

Sherlock snorted. Martin shot him a look. "Where are you and your colleague staying tonight?"

"At the Hereford Arms," John said.

"Grand," Martin said, with an entire absence of enthusiasm. "I'll have a police car run you back there after you've both visited the station to have your evidence taken."

Hawkins let out a muffled shout, across the other side of the meadow. They saw him put on gloves, and stoop, to pick something up from the ground and put it in an evidence bag. He came back around the edge of the meadow as he had gone, but the expression on his face was quite different: he was holding a stone, shaped like a primitive club, in an evidence bag in both his hands.

"It fits," he said to the inspector. "Sir, it had been lying in the grass for only a few days, it hasn't rained, there might even be prints - "

"Not on that stone," Sherlock said. "Wrong texture to hold prints. You might find traces of blood with a good lab analysis. Inspector, can you tell me one thing?"

"What?" Martin was staring from the stone Hawkins was holding, to Sherlock, with an expression of disbelief. It was a good guess, John had to admit.

"What's that house over there?"

"Oh, that's the old Ambrey place. John Turner bought it, twenty years ago." Martin frowned at Sherlock. "Grand old place, from the outside, isn't it?"

"Quite so. I imagine all of this would have been Ambrey grounds, historically," Sherlock said blandly. 

"Yes, until the land was broken up and rented out. McCarthy rents - rented - what used to be the Ambrey's Home Farm. Now, Mr Sherlock Holmes, let's be going - time for you and your colleague to see the inside of a police station."

For the next couple of hours John kept expecting to be discovered as a slave. But Sherlock declined to be fingerprinted - he told the inspector that Scotland Yard had his prints on file, along with his DNA - and refused to go any further into the police station that the front offices. They never passed a metal detector. Prints of their shoes were taken. Eventually, Inspector Martin let them go, into the custody of a laconic police driver, who took them back to the Hereford Arms, and John realised that he was starving.

"Do you mind if we order dinner here?" he said, as Sherlock cast himself down on to the double bed again, hands folded beneath his chin, staring up at the ceiling. He was hoping that Sherlock would ignore him, and John could take permission for granted - he had smelled pub grub cooking as they went through the foyer, and the thought of a round meal of steak and chips was making his belly growl.

"Won't have time to eat it," Sherlock said. "As soon as the police car outside goes away, book a taxi - we're going to the county jail to interview young McCarthy."

John's belly let out a startling loud rumble, and Sherlock stared at him. "Must you make those distracting noises?"

"I'm hungry," John said. He swallowed. "Look - if we have to wait half an hour, maybe an hour would be better? Time to get something to eat, give the police something else to think about?"

Sherlock went on staring at him.

"Fine," he said, after a long intent look. "Go down to that cheap restaurant and eat something, if you must, and we'll leave in forty-five minutes precisely."

"You haven’t eaten today," John realised. "For God’s sake, you need to eat!"

"No, _you_ need to eat. I need to think. The brain’s what counts. Everything else is transport. You've got forty-three minutes now."

John left. He ran downstairs, making himself slow to a normal walk as he reached the ground floor, and walked deliberately into the bar-restaurant that smelled of food. He felt like a free man, walking up to the bar, picking up a menu, and staring down at the list of choices. He was almost salivating too much to speak: he swallowed twice, pointing to a steak and ale pie with chips, and shaking his head with a bit of confusion as the barman asked him if he'd like to upgrade to curly fries. He ordered a pint of beer with trepidation - no one here knows, he told himself, no one can see - and sat down at a table in the corner. There was a food menu at his table, too, and he stared at the obscenely-tempting desserts, loaded with cream and and chocolate, before thinking more sanely and ordering a hot wrap to go when the server arrived with his food. 

John sat at the table in the corner of the bar, and ate a steak and ale pie with concentration and savour he could not have imagined he possessed six months ago. The beer tasted good, the meat, the fries - everything was wonderful. The server came back with the hot wrap, in a polystyrene carton, and John thanked her cheerfully. He was almost dizzy with how good everything was, until he caught himself - feeling too warm in the crowded room - beginning to pull off his jersey. His jersey, that concealed his collar. The shirt collar barely concealed it: if he took his jersey off, the odds were someone would spot that glint of metal round his throat and know what he was.

Not a person, not a human being, but a thing that belonged in the pen in the guards van.

John ate the last few mouthfuls of his pie, left the rest of his beer, and went back to his owner's room, carrying the wrap, feeling foolish, like a dog bringing back an unwanted kill. 

Sherlock was on his feet, pacing the room, as John came in. "Excellent, the taxi should be here any moment. What's that? No," he said, gesturing the carton away. "When we get to the prison, John, you're in the lead. You show them this - " he handed John a plastic card - "and tell them that you have just arrived on the late train from London and you need a private interview with James McCarthy."

The card was a Scotland Yard police ID for G. Lestrade. 

"But the inspector took yours this afternoon - "

"I have half a dozen," Sherlock said. "I pickpocket Lestrade whenever he's annoying. The jail officials will have no idea who you are, John, and they have already had confirmed by phone that Inspector Lestrade will be paying a visit with Sherlock Holmes this evening."

John supposed he should argue, but what was the point? He was a slave, Sherlock was his owner, slaves obey orders. He nodded, took the ID, and they went downstairs again. John's leg hurt.

He was struggling not to limp as they got out of the taxi outside the jail, and went in. John thought he sounded wearily unconvincing as he showed the lying ID and asked to speak with James McCarthy, but he supposed he might have only sounded bored. The official process had them sign in, and John signed G. Lestrade in his own scrawl with hardly a qualm. Slaves have no conscience, he told himself: a posh boy messing about probably couldn't cause much trouble in the private interview room of a jail.

Jim McCarthy stood up as they entered the room. He was six foot tall, even, and wearing - John glanced at his feet - running shoes with the laces removed. 

"Are those New Balance running shoes?" John asked, startled. He glanced at Sherlock, who frowned back at him: in the list of instructions as to what John was to do had been the order that once in the private interview room, Sherlock would do the talking.

"Yes," the young man said, sounding equally startled. "I was wearing them when - " he swallowed " - when I came home to talk to dad."

"I am Sherlock Holmes," Sherlock said. "Alice Turner asked me to investigate your case."

"She believes you didn't do it," John said, and caught another impatient look from Sherlock, but the relieved expression on Jim McCarthy's face was worth a good deal.

"Thank God," he said, and sat down. "She's - she and I - we've been friends since dad moved here. Everyone seems to think I did it, and she didn't come to the inquest, I was afraid - "

"Yes," Sherlock said. "Alice Turner thinks you didn't kill your father, and I know you didn't. Stop drivelling, we don't have much time. Tell me, as briefly as you can, what you and your father quarrelled about."

Jim McCarthy went red, then white. He stared down at the table. "I - _can't_ ," he said miserably.

"You might as well know," John said, taking pity on him, "Alice said that it was no time for hiding things, and she thought you'd quarrelled about her."

Jim looked up at him, like a raw recruit at his first dressing-down, abject and ashamed. 

"Come on," John said, patiently, as he had said to several young soldiers in trouble, "you may as well make a clean breast of it. Can't make things worse, might help."

"Dad wanted me to marry her," Jim gulped. "He'd been going on about it for years, he got more angry about it as Uncle John - Mr Turner - got sicker. Whenever she came home from the holidays, as soon as she was sixteen, he kept telling me, stop messing about, boy, go at her, it's your future, you marry her and you're in - " He swallowed. "I love Alice," he said. "But she's been away at Wycombe Abbey since she was eleven." 

"Wycombe Abbey," John said, surprised again. 

"It's a girl's boarding school," Jim McCarthy explained, sounding foggy. "I'll - anyway, I've got a boyfriend. In Bristol. He's twenty-four, he manages a bar - anyway he's assistant manager. I work there weekends. He kept saying I should tell dad about him, we've been going out for a couple of years now, but dad's always so cracked about me and Alice, I was always - too - "

John nodded at him, encouragingly. "Your dad sounds well scary," he murmured gently.

"I was scared," Jim got out in a big gulp, and John nodded again. "So, your boyfriend...?"

"Peter. He probably thinks I did it," Jim said in a wail. "He - he wanted me to tell my dad, and so I went home - I didn't tell dad I was coming, I knew Alice was home from Cambridge and I didn't want dad setting anything up for me, so I just caught the bus to Newport and then the train home and came out to the pond to find him - I knew he'd be there if it was a fine morning. I told myself everything was going to be okay, Peter was so sure it would be fine, and anyway I just had to tell him and go home and stay with Peter until dad cooled down. I even - " He smiled, shakily. "There was a black-tailed godwit that nested in the reserve last year, I wandered off to see if it was there this year, I thought if I told dad, he'd be interested - "

"But there wasn't," Sherlock said.

"No," Jim said. "Just the old nesting scrapes. So I went back and went on and I meant to tell him, but the minute I saw him, he started on about Alice, he talked about her - I couldn't bear it! I told him - I shouted at him, I told him to go to hell - " he gasped. "I told him I was never going to speak to him again, and I walked off and he was still shouting at me, telling me I was a stupid boy, he was only thinking of me - " The boy sobbed suddenly. "And then I heard him yell - I heard a crack, like a stone hitting the ice - And when I got back, he was - lying on the ground, and his head, his head looked - _pulpy_ ," he brought out, in anguish. "And I'd told him to go to hell. The last thing I said to him was I never wanted to speak to him again. I told him I was sorry, when he was lying there, and all he said to me was a rat, a rat..." He was crying, honest heartbreak, shaking his head and rubbing his face with his hands.

"It's all right," John said, in his practiced officer's voice, reassuring. He believed now. Sherlock was standing still, looking at John with a strange expression on his face. 

"I'm sorry," the boy groaned, shivering. "But I didn't do it, I deserve to be here, but I didn't - "

"Jim," John said, sharply. "Have you had a chance to talk to Peter since you were arrested?"

"No," the boy said. "He probably thinks I did it - "

"He probably doesn't," John said. "If Alice knows you couldn't do it, don't you think Peter will, too? I'll talk to the officers on my way out, and see they set you up with a phonecall to Peter tomorrow." He glanced at Sherlock.

"Thank you, Mr McCarthy," Sherlock said, crisply. "I've viewed the crime scene and spoken to the police. In my view there is incontrovertible evidence that you did not kill your father, which I shall certainly bring forward in your defense if the police should fail to do so."

The boy looked up, foggily confused, not reassured. John smiled at him. "Sherlock Holmes doesn't think you did it," he said. "And nor do I. When it comes to court, Jim, don't mess around refusing to say what you and your dad fought about, all right? Tell your lawyer, tell the jury, you loved your dad, but he was a bit cracked on that one thing. Your dad's past caring, and he'd want you to explain, if it got you out of trouble."

They seemed to be done now. They left as they had arrived: John scrawled the time of exit in the book, and Sherlock had his phone out, punching the keys for a taxi. 

"That was one of the most expert interrogations I have ever seen," Sherlock said, sitting back in the taxi, looking at John with speculation. "You knew exactly how to make him crack."

"He really didn't do it," John said, still surprised. He eyed Sherlock. "That was pretty amazing, what you did."

"What?" Sherlock said, looking startled again.

"Everything," John said. "You knew Alice Turner went to Wycombe Abbey. You knew Jim McCarthy was wearing New Balance running shoes. Jesus Christ, Sherlock, you knew about the black-legged godtit - "

"Black-tailed godwit," Sherlock corrected. "It would be unusual to see one in inland wetlands this time of year, young McCarthy must have been quite desperate to offer his father a distraction."

"Whatever," John said. He had been mentally dismissing Sherlock's verbal posturings as posh-boy showing off, despite the evidence, the police inspector willing to let Sherlock get away with using a fake police ID. "You really saw all those track marks on the meadows."

"Of course," Sherlock said, still looking startled. "There has been no rain since the murder, the marks were still quite visible where the police had not over-trampled them. Now they've had the obvious pointed out to them, if there are any forensic traces left at all on the murder weapon, it will be clear that Jim McCarthy never handled the stone - it was plucked from its resting place under the beech tree on the other side of the meadow, and Jim McCarthy was never within twenty yards of it."

"So you've cleared him," John said. He shook his head, grinning. "That was extraordinary. Quite extraordinary."

Sherlock cast him a still-startled glance and John shut up. 

Back at the hotel, Sherlock lay down again on the double bed, in the by-now familiar posture. "Go to bed, John," he ordered. 

For the first time since he had been plucked from the hospital by the slaver bailiffs and taken to the processing centre, John slept well. He woke to the light coming into the room: Sherlock was sitting on his bed, having evidently showered, changed clothes, and probably shaved, all without waking John. 

What had woken him, John realised, was the click of a mug of hot tea having been put down on the bedside table about a minute ago: it was at drinking temperature.

"John," Sherlock said. "Drink your tea. I want to talk to you. I don’t know what to do, and I think better when I talk aloud. I've tried taking the skull with me, but it just attracts attention."

John sat up, nodded, and drank the tea. He bit down on _So I'm just filling in for the skull?_

"It may have escaped your attention last night, but clearing young McCarthy is only half the job: the other half is discovering the killer."

John nodded. "Well, you did your half," he said. "And it was pretty amazing. Let the police figure out who actually did it."

"They won't," Sherlock said. "They're imbeciles, and local imbeciles, at that. I identified the killer to them yesterday."

"A tall left-handed man who smokes?" John remembered. "Well, they can hardly go searching the neighbourhood on that kind of description."

"I know who did it," Sherlock said. "And so do you, if you would only _think_."

The room phone rang. Sherlock stared at it. John got up, annoyed, and crossed the room to pick up a phone within arm's reach of Sherlock. A young girl's voice spoke. "Hello? Mr Holmes?"

"No, I'm the colleague," John said. "Doctor Watson. What can we do for you, Miss Turner?"

"Mr Holmes wanted to know about the rent of the Hatherley Farm," Alice Turner said. "I tried to log on last night and find out, but the online file isn't registering for some reason. So I'm going to drive in this morning and take a look at the paper copy in the office, as soon as the secretary gets in at eight. I'll call back when I've seen that and let Mr Holmes know. How is the investigation going?"

John glanced over at Sherlock, who shook his head abruptly.

"We're working on it," he said, reassuringly. "We'll have news later today."

"Great," Alice Turner said. "I'll call back soon!" 

"She wasn't able to find out the rent of Hatherley Farm online," Sherlock said, "So she intends to look at the hardcopy file in her father's office in Hereford this morning. From the hour I assume the receptionist starts at eight in the morning, so she will need to leave their home at seven-thirty, and it is after seven o'clock now, so finish your tea and get dressed, John, we must be going."

"How did you know?"

"Because Charles McCarthy paid no rent for Hatherley Farm," Sherlock said. "I suspected as much."

John stared at him, open-mouthed, suddenly the pieces falling together. "Charles McCarthy was blackmailing John Turner," he said, slowly. "And John Turner killed McCarthy."

"Quite so, John, you're using your wits at last. We'll drive over to the Turner house this morning, and if John Turner is a tall, left-handed man who is lame in his right leg and smokes Indian cigars, shall we leave it to the police to discover him, or shall I tell Miss Turner that, as she requested, I have solved the case and the murderer is not her childhood friend, it is her father?"

"Jesus christ," John said, finally, flatly. "I see why you didn't know what to do."

"Wait a minute," John said, back-pedalling. "We don't know it was blackmail - "

"Of course it was. Consider that Charles McCarthy seemed to think it was ask and have for his son - a poor man who lived dependent on a far wealthier man - to marry his patron's heir. At sixteen parental consent is needed to legally wed, and why would McCarthy have supposed Turner would ever have agreed to have his daughter marry at sixteen unless he could hold something worse over her father's head? Get dressed while you're puzzling it out, John."

A taxi drew up to the entrance of the hotel, but it wasn't the one they had booked. The driver got out and solicitously helped the passenger out: a tall, grey-haired man, leaning on a stick. He was wearing a dark Burberry, but - John looked at his feet - he was wearing square-toed boots, of polished leather, and as he came towards the front door, John saw he was lame in the right leg. He stood facing them, and - absently - pulled a cigar-case out of one pocket, cut the tip off with a pocket-knife, and let it fall carelessly into one of the flowerbeds. He fitted the cigar into the cigar holder. He was, John realised in fascination, left-handed. He lit the cigar and took a long breath of it.

"Which of you gentlemen is Sherlock Holmes?" He had a marked Australian accent.

"I am," Sherlock said. "You must be John Turner."

"Yes." He smiled faintly. "I need to have a conversation with you, but I escaped the house as soon as my daughter had driven off - she left me with strict instructions to rest up - and I want to enjoy a smoke before we go in. Perhaps one of you gentlemen will ask the hotel to find us a private meeting room and order breakfast."

John went back into the hotel. The receptionist had spotted John Turner outside, and was very eager to provide them with whatever Mr Turner might want. "We know his usual breakfast," she assured John. "Tell him we'll have breakfast for three in the ground-floor sitting room looking out over the rose garden, and we'll put an Engaged sign on the door. We'll be all set up for him in ten minutes."

John went back out again. John Turner and Sherlock were still facing each other. Sherlock looked as if he were inhaling the smoke of John Turner's cigar. He repeated what the receptionist had told him, and John Turner nodded, smiling. "I always used to have business meetings in this hotel in the morning, if I could. They do a grand breakfast."

He was a strange and impressive figure, John thought. He walked with a slow, limping step and his shoulders were bowed: and his face, turned away to gaze out over the country landscape, had deep-lined, craggy features. He had been a strong, muscular man in his prime, and his tangled beard, grizzled hair, and huge eyebrows still gave him an air of dignity and power. But his face ashen white, and his lips and nostrils had a bluish tinge. John studied lips and the corners of his nostrils were tinged with a shade of blue. 

He smoked the cigar slowly, in silence, and finally tapped out the ashes and dropped the end of the cigar in the flowerbed, grinding it in with his heel. "Let's go in."

Turner sat down on the sofa in the small sitting-room, and Sherlock seated himself on the armchair facing. Neither of them seemed to want breakfast, though John eyed it hopefully, feeling heartless: but he fully expected before the hour was up to hear Sherlock saying "No time, John - "

"I got your message."

"I thought you would."

"I thought I would have find some excuse for my daughter, but she left early this morning - "

"Yes, that was my doing."

“And why did you wish to see me?” He looked as though his question was already answered.

“Yes,” Sherlock said, leaning forward with his hands folded together. "I know all about McCarthy."

John Turner sank his face into his hands. "God forgive me," he said. "I wouldn't have let the young man come to harm. I give you my word that I would have spoken out if he were found guilty."

"If you'd lived long enough," John said, appalled.

Sherlock glanced at him. "My colleague, Doctor John Watson," he said. 

"Yes," John Turner said. He lifted his head from his hands and stared at John. "You have a quick eye, Doctor. I have type two diabetes."

"Late stage," John said. "You went undiagnosed for years, and now you have nerve damage in your feet and heart complications. How long does your doctor give you?"

"A month," Turner said. "Perhaps two. I would have tried to live til the trial," he told John earnestly. "I knew Alice was safe once that devil was dead, but I would have tried to live to exonerate young Jim if he had been found guilty. I didn't find out til yesterday when Alice told me she had hired you that things had gone against him so badly at the inquest. My dear girl tried to shield me. It will break her heart when she hears of my arrest."

"It may not come to that," Sherlock said. "I've given the police enough information to clear James McCarthy. Your daughter is my client." 

"I would rather die under my own roof than in jail," Turner said. 

Sherlock pulled out his phone. He did something complicated with buttons, and put it down on the table. "Hereford Arms," he said, and added the day and date. "Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, John Turner. Tell us the truth, Mr Turner, and if James McCarthy is convicted, I shall produce your confession to save him. If he is acquitted, I'll delete the file unused. I promise you that I won't use it unless it is absolutely needed."

After a long moment, John Turner nodded. "I agree. It's questionable if I shall live til James McCarthy stands trial, so it doesn't matter much to me, but I'd like to spare Alice the shock, if I can. She never knew what a devil Charles McCarthy was, and she never knew what I did before she was born. I was living in Victoria, near Ararat, and I had a sheep farm, I was in a pretty good way. I drank, but in those days it didn't seem to matter. I lived a bachelor life, with half a dozen other men. I had trouble up at the edge of my territory, with sheep disappearing, and we'd find places where it looked as if a group of people had roasted one of my sheep whole and had a picnic. I went up with my men to the edge of my land, and we laid low and looked out for trouble. We saw a fire lit, and two sheep killed, and six or seven people sitting around having a feast off my mutton, on my land. I was damned angry and I know I was damned drunk. We charged in, there was a fight, and at the end of it, three of them were shot dead, and two of my friends were dead, and the fourth - I had pushed the fourth man into the fire. I didn't mean to do it, I think, but - I was drunk. Well, we called in the police, and we told them a tale, and they - well, the dead men had been trespassing and sheep stealing, and I was a respectable sheep farmer, and there had been guns on both sides, and they arrested the survivors and they left us be. I suppose Charles McCarthy must have found the fare to England somehow, because when the big wool boom came in, and I made my fortune and decided to go back to England and never smell another roasted sheep again, nor touch a drop of drink, he somehow followed me. I had got married, I had quit drinking, and though my wife died, she left me Alice, and I thought, I did a foul thing but I'll do a little good to make up for it, and set myself to live well and use my money well. This part of the world is more prosperous for me living here. I broke up the old estate and funded the nature reserve. I thought all was going well, and then I met Charles McCarthy on Regent Street, when I was up in London to see after an investment, and he came up to me, holding on to his little boy's hand, and he was all but in rags - I will give the devil his due, his son was clean and neat, and many parents poorer than him would already have sold their son. He smiled at me like a devil, and he said 'Here we are, Jack,' touching me on the arm; 'we’ll be as good as a family to you. There’s two of us, me and my son, and you can have the keeping of us. If you don’t - it’s a fine, law-abiding country is England, and there’s always a policeman within hail.'" He pointed out to me, you see, that he had been acquitted of the deaths in court, because it could be shown he had never fired a gun. But he had seen me shoot two men and shove another into the fire, and no court in Australia had ever tried me for those deaths: the police had simply... overlooked them."

John Turner let out a huge sigh, shaking his entire body. "Well, down they came to the west country, there was no shaking them off, and there they have lived rent free on my best land ever since. There was no rest for me, no peace, no forgetfulness; turn where I would, there was his cunning, grinning face at my elbow. It grew worse as Alice grew up, for he soon saw I was more afraid of her knowing my past than of the police. Whatever he wanted he must have, and whatever it was I gave him without question, land, money, houses, until at last he asked a thing which I could not give. He asked for Alice." He looked up at Sherlock, and his face was whiter than before. "His son, you see, had grown up, and so had my girl, and he could see I was ill, and that devil saw it as a fine stroke that his lad should marry and step into the whole property. But there I was firm. Not that I had any dislike to young Jim, but I had gone through hell to save my daughter, and I would not hand her over. I stood firm. McCarthy threatened. I braved him to do his worst. We were to meet at the pool midway between our houses to talk it over."

"I used to walk down to that pond two or three times a week. It's a pleasant place. I've stood under that beech tree and sheltered from the rain a hundred mornings. I haven't walked so far by myself in over a year, but I didn't want that devil in my house. I had resolved to tell him to do his worst, to turn him out of the farm if I must, to tell my daughter the ugly truth if I had to. But when I went down there I found him talking with his son, so I waited beneath the beech to be out of sight until he was alone. But as I listened all the old rage in me seemed to come uppermost. The doctor ordered me to give up smoking two years ago, but I was wearing my old walking cloak with my cigar case in the pocket, and I lit a cigar to keep myself from shouting at him. He was urging his son to marry my daughter with as little regard for what she might think as if she were a slave he had bought in the market. It drove me mad to think that my daughter should be in the power of such a man as this. I'm dying. I didn't want to face it, but I saw death, and I thought I could face death easily if I knew that foul tongue had been silenced. I did it, Mr Holmes. I would do it again. I picked up a rock and I struck him down from behind with no more compunction than if he had been a rabid dog. I've killed drunk and been sorry for it and tried to atone, but that murder I committed in cold blood, cold sober, and I have no regret. He cried out as he died, and I realised his son would hear. I'd dropped the rock and run to the cover of the wood before his son returned, and while he was blubbering over his monster father's body, I came back to pick up my coat that fell when I struck down Charles McCarthy. He never saw me. I wish him no harm, but I am glad I killed his father before I died." He looked up, and added, grimly, "That is the true story, gentlemen, of all that occurred."

Sherlock picked up the phone, did something else complicated with the buttons, and from the speakers, they heard the first few words of Sherlock's voice identifying the time and place, and then John Turner's voice, "I agree. It's questionable if I shall live til James McCarthy stands trial..."

"That's quite clear," Sherlock said. "Very well."

"And what do you intend to do?" John Turner asked, leaning back in the sofa, as if exhausted.

"I shall go back to London," Sherlock said. "In view of your health, I'll do nothing with this providing James McCarthy is acquitted. I doubt very much if the police will work out your identity for themselves."

Turner pushed himself to his feet. He was tottering and shaking, but his voice was still clear. "Goodbye then, Mr Holmes. Doctor Watson. May you die easier, when the time comes, for the peace which you have given me." He stumbled slowly from the room.

"How did you know he was diabetic?" Sherlock asked.

"The blue tinge indicated heart failure, the lameness indicated nerve damage," John said, "and the hotel receptionist said this was his 'usual' breakfast. Danish pastries, doughnuts, fresh orange juice, coffee, cream, and a mountain of white toast with jam. Even if he wasn't a drinker when he was young, this is a diabetic's precursor."

"Very good," Sherlock nodded. "That's quite impressive, John."

John shrugged, cheerfully. " _You_ worked out exactly how the murder was committed and who by from a few faint footprints in the grass, and a cigar end," John said.

"Yes," Sherlock said, "But I'm a genius. You're just an army doctor with a gambling problem. Still, you were right, John - you _are_ useful. Go back up to the room and pack, we'll catch the next train back to London." He glanced over the table. "Unless you'd like breakfast, first."

John shook his head, grinning ruefully. "I lost my appetite." He paused. "You haven't eaten now since - "

"I ate whatever it was you left in the room last night, once I was sure of my conclusions. What _was_ it?"

John shrugged. "A hot beef and onion wrap with cheese, I think. Probably better when it _was_ hot."

The train trip back to London was the same length as the trip out, but felt incomparably better. John kept his collar covered - ("Why did you uncover it on the trip down?" - "To make sure we had the table to ourselves, obviously.") and the train was still serving hot cooked breakfasts. Sherlock ate without appetite, and John ate without any illusions that the meal was particularly good, but he had ordered it and paid for it, and no one was treating him like a slave. 

The taxi ride from Paddington felt almost joyful. If Sherlock wasn't going to keep him locked up in the flat, if he could go out, go on errands, walk around London, it would feel almost like being free. That case had been amazing: watching Sherlock solve it from such a tiny amount of data had been wonderful. John grinned out of the window, watching London go past in daylight, feeling relaxed and cheerful. He'd have to figure out about reporting to Mycroft, but in his present state of mind, that felt like a small enough problem.

"I haven't slept since the plane home from Belarus, and I never sleep well on planes," Sherlock declared.

John went to the kitchen to empty out the tea he'd made yesterday morning, and put hot water in the cup to soak. "You haven't eaten much, either," he said. "Want some food, then sleep, or sleep and I'll make you something to eat when you wake up?"

"Neither," Sherlock said. He gestured. "Come here, John."

Willingly, John walked over. A moment later, he was cold. Sherlock's arms were round him, neatly locking him immobile. One hand fondled his groin, and John felt himself reacting, helplessly, physically. He felt/heard Sherlock's laugh as his owner mouthed his neck in a kind of nuzzling - kiss? 

"Go into my bedroom and get your clothes off, John. I'll eat later." He said something else - John thought it might have been something about emailing Lestrade - but John was no longer listening. Sherlock let go of him. John turned away. He was cold all over. 

He had been stupidly happy. Stupid. He stumbled into Sherlock's room, looked around, feeling dazed and blank and stupidly hurt. Stupid. 

There was no point in fighting back. There was no point in trying to complain or protest. Mycroft had evidently known this was going to happen, and Mycroft owned John and Sherlock made use of him and he wasn't Doctor John Watson any more, he shouldn't try to pretend he was, that was stupid. Stupid. 

He wasn't going to be raped. Slaves couldn't be raped. He was going to get naked for his owner and his owner was going to use him and then...

John could not quite see past the "and then". He got undressed, folding his clothes neatly because habits die harder than souls, and he sat down on the edge of the bed and trapped his hands between his knees and bent his head and waited. He was stupid to expect anything else, he was stupid to suppose that Sherlock had liked him, he was stupid to suppose he was anything to Sherlock beyond useful. Useful for this or that, out on a case: useful for this, when home from a case.

When he looked up, and Sherlock was standing in the doorway watching him, he didn't know how long Sherlock had been there.

Sherlock was looking at him with an expression of anger and distaste that made John's whole body lurch in fear. He remembered the howls of pain from the other room, his first night he had spent as Sherlock's slave. He'd supposed Sherlock intended to have sex with him. What if "get naked" was the prelude to Sherlock thrashing him? 

John swallowed, and tried to say something, but his mouth felt too dry. He stared back at Sherlock, watching the anger and distaste growing from Sherlock's face to his entire stance, and then Sherlock came forward and John ducked his head again, trying to breathe, trying not to panic. 

Sherlock jerked him to his feet and shoved the bundle of clothes into his arms. "Get out," he snarled. He shoved John naked out through the bedroom door and slammed it shut behind him.

It took John - he worked out later - fully an hour to move from his frozen crouch on the floor to get dressed again, to be sure that Sherlock had gone to sleep, and three hours after that before he dared move away from the floor outside the bedroom. Sherlock was asleep, and he didn't wake for sixteen hours. When he woke, he went for three days without speaking to John, but he also didn't grope him again. John, though he walked on tiptoe around Sherlock, though he was confused as hell, was deeply, profoundly relieved.

_TBA_


	3. The Missing Question

The day after they came back from Hereford, John found the phone, the new expensive one that had been left for him in the room upstairs: Sherlock had evidently just thrown it down on to the couch.

There were no numbers in the phone's memory, and no record of a text sent, even though John remembered seeing Sherlock typing on the keypad.

John took the phone back upstairs and put it in the drawer of the desk. He wondered how much trouble he would get into if he used it to phone Harry. 

If he could even remember her number. Communication with Harry over the past few years had generally been via drunk phone calls from Harry, and rambling apologetic or angry voicemail messages. He couldn't remember the last time he'd phoned her. Certainly not to tell her he was about to be enslaved.

Mrs Hudson came upstairs to offer him and Sherlock lunch (just this once, dear, I'm not your housekeeper) and loaned John her vacuum cleaner to make a start on the carpet. Sherlock was still asleep. John scrupulously divided the food into two plates, and put one plateful in the microwave. Two hours later when Sherlock hadn't surfaced, John ate the second lunch. He'd slept badly, every creak on the stairs sounding like Sherlock's feet, but after three cups of tea and a double lunch of proper food, and no sign of Sherlock, he was beginning to be able to think about the previous day with bemusement rather than outright terror.

Sherlock came out of his bedroom while John was cleaning. He was naked and wrapped in a sheet. Even bleary-eyed with 18 hours of sleep and his dark tangle of curls standing every which-way in the worst bed hair John had seen in a while, he still looked gorgeous and, John realised as his stomach seemed to sink and twist, he was still afraid of Sherlock. But he walked into the bathroom without saying a word to John, and stayed there for an hour: he came out wrapped in a silk dressing-gown with his hair looking as if it had naturally fallen into attractively disordered curls, and the bathroom was full of steam and soap and drenched towels that took John nearly as much time to clear up as Sherlock had spent in the bath.

Sherlock spent the rest of the day on the sofa. He didn't get dressed. John stayed in the kitchen. There were cleaning materials and hot water, and Sherlock couldn't see him.

John finished cleaning the kitchen just after six. It gave him a strange but quite real sense of accomplishment, to look at the shining counters and polished sink and clean mugs and plates. He went back through into the main room and said to Sherlock, "Want something to eat? I can make an omelette. Or beans on toast." 

He waited, Sherlock lay sprawled on the sofa, his bare toes working into the arm of the sofa. He looked as if he were thinking about something very hard. He didn't answer John, though he did look at him, a long, assessng stare.

"Right," John said, backing away. "Beans on toast it is." 

He buttered the toast, grated cheese on top of the beans, and put the steaming plate down on the coffee table, with a knife and fork. "There you go," he said, and backed away again. Sherlock hadn't even looked at him this time. He ate his own share of the food at the kitchen table, washed up his plate and silverware, and decided - Sherlock's food was still untouched on the coffee table - to leave Sherlock to contemplation of the ceiling, or whatever it was he was thinking about.

He heard Sherlock's violin in the night. It was unnerving, a strange, haunting, not quite music. 

When John came downstairs again on Monday morning, the plate of beans was still on the table. It looked as if Sherlock had tried one bite and then given up. Sherlock himself wasn't on the sofa. The door to his bedroom was shut. John made himself tea, threw away the congealed food, and went downstairs to ask Mrs Hudson if she was going shopping.

When Mrs Hudson suggested he come with her and help her carry the groceries, John didn't even bother going back upstairs for his jacket. The sun was shining, cold watery English sunlight, and even if a chill wind was blowing, it felt like a glorious day. The supermarket felt huge and crowded and colorful, confusing in a welter of possibilities. John pushed the trolley, following Mrs Hudson as close as he could. 

She only asked him his preference once, and when he gave her a blank look she never asked again. That was fine. Organic fruit? Did they sell inorganic fruit?

If he had come back from Afghanistan a free man, he would still have had to navigate these shelves, these possibilities, the people who talked too much, the shouting boxes asking him to choose between too many kinds of breakfast cereal or tea. He hadn't shopped in a supermarket in ... years? They'd gone off base last home leave to get beer and snacks for the movie marathons they'd watched, because the store on base didn't sell alcohol. He didn't remember that supermarket being this complicated, but then all they'd been looking for was beer. Instead of the cashiers John remembered from the last time, there were screens and scanners. Mrs Hudson stood patiently waving each item across the scanner. John watched, bemused, grateful it wasn't him. He supposed it would be, eventually, and he'd have to learn how.

Mrs Hudson pointed down the row of scanners. "That's the one for you, dear," she said.

John glanced. There was a scanner at the far end, next to the tobacco and Lottery tickets counter where they had actual sales clerks, and on the wall above it a big notice said FOR SLAVE USE.

There was a woman standing at the scanner. She was wearing greyish-beige, shabby clothes. Round her neck, the glint of metal wasn't a necklace. A couple of yards away, leaning on a loaded trolley, another man was standing, dressed in a sharp suit that looked strangely out of place in a supermarket: shirt and jacket open at the throat to expose a line of silver. Both of them had the weariest faces that John had ever seen.

Slaves like him, doing the grocery shopping for their owner. John looked away, looked back. No one else was looking at them, but when another shopper came by and banged her trolley into the one the collared man was leaning on, John was strangely sure that wasn't an accident.

John's bad leg was aching when they got home, and even though he'd put the light groceries into the bags he was carrying with his bad arm, his shoulder hurt. 

Most of the shopping was for himself and Sherlock. Mrs Hudson retrieved one of the bags from him, and took herself off to her own domain. John climbed the stairs, slowly, thinking of those faces in the supermarket: tired, quiet, weary people who had too much work to do and nowhere to go.

He opened the door and shouldered his way in and was stopped by a tall fury with rumpled hair.

"You _left_ ," Sherlock growled. "You _went out_." 

"I got the shopping!" John backed up against the wall, clutching the bags. He heard the defensiveness in his own voice. Tired quiet weary slaves with the expectation of punishment. He braced his shoulders against the wall and didn't cringe, _didn't cringe_ , he kept his eyes fixed on Sherlock's, his chin tilted up, and fought defensiveness with anger. 

"I went out to Tesco's to get the shopping, with Mrs Hudson," he said. "You know, the food you eat? The tea you drink? The cleaning I do?"

"You went out _with Mrs Hudson?_ " Sherlock swirled past him, out the door and down the stairs, calling out "Mrs _Hudson!_ ", still sounding enraged. 

"Oh dear, Sherlock, what is it now?" John heard Mrs Hudson's voice from belowstairs, quite unintimidated. The door slammed and John heard nothing more.

After a moment, he went across to the kitchen and started putting the groceries away. He had almost finished when he heard Sherlock coming upstairs again, and made himself continue to bustle around the kitchen, trying to act like he hadn't even noticed when Sherlock came in.

"John," Sherlock said sharply. 

John turned on his heel and stood at parade rest. He lifted his chin. Sherlock's eyes were colorless and cold.

"You will never leave 221b without my permission," Sherlock said. "Unless Mycroft collects you. You will _never_ leave 221b with Mrs Hudson. I've told her what the rules are. If she asks you, remind her you're not allowed. If she tells you about her hip, tell her to take a taxi and add it to my bill."

John looked out of the window. The sun was shining. He could almost feel the wind against his face. He was shut in. It hadn't been a pleasant walk, exactly, but he'd been out of doors, it had felt almost like being back to normal: now it was taken away from him.

"I won't run away," he said at last. He licked his lips: they felt cracked and dry. "I won't..."

"If you leave 221b without my permission, you're a runaway," Sherlock said after a moment's silent surveillance of John's face. "If you leave 221b with Mrs Hudson, I will find you and I will make you bleed." He paused, and seemed to think of something else. "Why did Mycroft cane you?" 

John swallowed hard. "He didn't - "

"Don't lie about it. I saw the marks when you left my bedroom on Saturday. The fading of the bruises indicated you were caned when I was in Belarus. Mycroft had you in custody then and he wouldn't have permitted anyone else to strike you, therefore he did it himself: and he would have told you why. Why did he cane you?"

John swallowed again. "I ... talked back. To someone who works for him... William. He said - your brother said - I needed discipline. He said he would provide it. He said you wouldn't."

Sherlock continued to stare at him, cold-eyed. "You say you 'talked back'," he said. "What did you say? Try to remember your exact words."

John half-grinned: he couldn't help it. "I told him my inseam was 27 inches, and I might have told him my shoe size, too." At the look of sudden bewilderment on Sherlock's face, he added "You had to be there."

Sherlock lifted his chin and looked annoyed. "Go and sit down. On the couch."

"I need to finish putting the groceries away - "

The milk and eggs were still on the counter. John had meant to make tea. 

"No, you don't. Sit down, over there."

John swallowed. The eggs would be fine. The apartment was warm. The milk would go off. He wasn't allowed out to shop. He faced a week of begging for milk from Mrs Hudson or milkless tea and cereal. "I'll just put the milk in the fridge," he said, steadily, and walked - consciously not looking at Sherlock, trying not to look defiant. He picked up the milk. He opened the fridge door. 

The man's dead eyes looked out at him, half-closed, hair tangled, skin grey-white.

John closed the fridge door and leaned against it, swallowing hard. He was cold to his stomach, hands numb. Breathing was difficult.

After a while, he managed to stand up straight again. He put the milk down on the counter. He swallowed, and opened the door again. He wasn't hallucinating. The head was not anyone he knew. It had been cut off at the neck by a scalpel, not a sword or an axe. It was probably a theft from Barts morgue. He closed the door, and turned. Sherlock bloody Holmes was watching him with an _interested_ expression on his face. 

"So, there’s a head in the fridge," John said. He could hear his voice shaking. 

"Yes," Sherlock agreed, calmly.

"A bloody head!" John's voice cracked.

"Well, where else was I supposed to put it?" Sherlock inquired. "I did tell you not to open the fridge. Sit down on the couch."

Numbly, John obeyed. He was shaking.

"I got it from Barts morgue," Sherlock told him. 

John swallowed again. Sherlock was sitting on the other end of the couch looking at him, looking _interested_. 

"I’m measuring the coagulation of saliva after death."

John put his head in his hands.

"You need tea," Sherlock said, diagnostically. "Do you need anything to eat?"

Startled, John looked back at him. All he wanted, at the moment, was to be somewhere else. Somewhere there wasn't a severed head in the fridge. Or a mad posh git who liked severed bits of bodies. He wasn't hungry. He couldn't imagine being hungry again.

Sherlock got up. John sat still. He wondered if Sherlock would notice if John crept upstairs. 

A few minutes later, Sherlock put a plate with two pieces of dry toast down in front of him, and then a mug of tea. John stared at the plate. Sherlock had just made him toast and tea. John picked up one slice of toast, wondering if it was going to kill him or choke him, and bit into it. Nothing happened. He ate the toast, chewing and swallowing with determination rather than appetite. He drank the tea. Sherlock was watching him as if he were a science experiment. He ate the second slice of toast. He finished the tea. Sherlock was still watching him.

"You can't measure the coagulation of saliva after death," John said, steadily. He no longer thought he was going to throw up, but he wasn't opening the fridge door again for anything. "Saliva doesn't coagulate."

Sherlock grinned at him: a spontaneous, sudden benediction of delight and amusement. "Well done, John."

"I knew you got the head from Barts," John said, "because I could see it was severed by a scalpel, by dissection after death. How long is it going to be in the fridge?"

"Good," Sherlock said, approvingly. "You saw the head for less than twenty seconds, by my count, less than five on your first viewing, just over fifteen seconds the second time. It clearly shocked you - I didn't anticipate that you had seen the severed head of an acquaintance, probably a fellow soldier, after execution in Afghanistan - but you still observed some important details and were thinking clearly enough to be aware that saliva, as you say, doesn't coagulate."

"Did you put the head in the fridge to experiment on _me?_ " John went cold again. "How did you know about Ted - "

"If I'd wanted to observe your reactions to a severed head I wouldn't have ordered you not to open the fridge door," Sherlock said, sounding annoyed for the first time. "It was obvious from your immediate reaction that you were close to a panic attack. You staved it off, however, by using a breathing technique that I assume your therapist taught you. You might have been angry or disgusted by the sight of a severed head in the fridge but your panic attacks are consistently related in some way to your experiences in Afghanistan. Therefore, you related the severed head to one you had seen there, most probably executed by sword or axe. As the head in the fridge is of a white male in his early thirties, you were unlikely to be reacting to the memory of an Afghani being executed, therefore most likely a fellow soldier. When you opened the fridge door and studied the head again, you spent at least ten seconds observing its facial features, less than five studying the severed neck, giving priority to confirming that the head did not resemble your memories, therefore, an acquaintance. Not a close friend, because your reaction would more likely have been more extreme."

John looked down at the empty mug. "That's ..." he didn't want to say 'amazing', even though it was. "That's ... accurate," he said at last. Lieutenant Ted Dawes had been captured by the Taliban about a month before John had been shot, and delivered back to them in two pieces. 

"Do you need more tea?" Sherlock asked. He didn't sound concerned, or look concerned. He sounded as if he were checking data. John looked at him. 

"What... what's going on?"

"I need to ask you some questions."

"About the head?"

"Forget the head!" Sherlock snapped.

"I wish I could," John said.

"Forget the head. Delete it. I'll take it back to Barts tonight, I'll have finished with it by then. Do you need more tea?"

"Yes," John said, bewildered, and then "Thank you."

Sherlock came back with two mugs of tea. He put one down in front of John, and sat down at the other end of the couch with the other.

"What is this about?" John asked.

Sherlock smiled at him. It was a conscious, reassuring smile, as different from the sudden gleam of pleasure as moon from sun, and John found it more than slightly creepy.

"I need to know why you didn't want to have sex with me on Saturday."

John looked down at the tea. After a moment, he picked up the hot mug, and drank from it. He put the mug down again. He wondered if there was any possibility of the ceiling falling in. 

"I should say, John," Sherlock put on that conscious, reassuring, creepy smile again "that you will not be punished for honest responses. I need to know your real reasons. Even if they appear to you to be insulting or unflattering to me. That's not important."

John looked down at the tea again. After a long moment, he picked up the mug, and drank from it. He played with the mug in his hands. The ceiling remained unhelpfully intact.

"John, I've asked you a question and I expect an answer. At length, in as much detail as you need."

"Why do you need to know?" John said.

Sherlock frowned at him. "Because I wanted to have sex with you," he said, as if explaining the obvious to someone particularly obtuse. "Your behaviour put me off. That was frustrating and annoying. I may want to have sex with you again. You need to explain to me what your reasons were for reacting like that, so that your behaviour isn't repeated next time."

"My behaviour put you off?" John felt almost numb again.

"You were cringing like a whipped dog," Sherlock said. "I don't find that sexually appealling."

"I don't want to have sex with you," John said.

"Why not?"

"You _own_ me! I'm your slave!" John slammed the mug down on the table. "I don't want to have sex with you, but I don't have a choice!" He was choking. He swallowed. "I can't stop you, but I don't have to pretend I like it!"

"I don't want you to pretend you like it," Sherlock said. He put his tea down on the table, too, and was regarding John with open fascination. "'Pretending' would be useless, you're a very bad liar, I would be able to tell you're faking it and that would be just as off-putting."

Sherlock sounded quite serious. John stared at him again. "You want me to _want_ to have sex with you."

"Yes," Sherlock said, as if it should be obvious. "After a case, I often want to have an orgasm before I catch up on sleep. Masturbation is tedious but effective. I don't need to have sex with you, but it would be convenient to be able to do so. I need to know why you don't want to have sex with me. You were relaxed and cheerful, you were easy to sexually arouse, and you have had sex with men before."

"You own me," John repeated.

"You're a slave," Sherlock said "Your owner wants to have sex with you. For most slaves, this is a positive incentive, unless their owner is brutal, cruel, the wrong gender, physically repellent, or unhygienic. While I appreciate you have at present only my word for it, I'm not a sadist, I'm not interested in causing you pain either accidentally or purposefully, and I have a sufficient supply of lubricant. I flatter myself I'm not physically repellant or unhygienic. Explain to me why you didn't want to have sex with me."

John looked down at the crumby plate. Sherlock had made him toast. Dry toast: if Sherlock had paid any attention at all, he would have known John liked toast with jam. But maybe he had and had also deduced that John didn't want red jam on his toast, or butter from the fridge, right now. Sherlock had made him toast, and two mugs of tea, and actually seemed - for Sherlock - quite sympathetic about the severed head in the fridge.

"Have you had sex with all your slaves?"

"Not with Carl." Sherlock hesitated. "We both ... not with Carl. With Angelo and Jim, yes, of course. Not with Kitty: she detested me. That was offputting."

Something occurred to John. He wondered about being careful, and then he decided he didn't care. "Have you ever had sex with someone who wasn't a slave?"

"No," Sherlock said. "It's much more convenient to remain unattached. I consider myself to be married to my work. Relationships are generally an inconvenience."

John looked down at the mug of tea again. After a long moment, he picked up the cooling mug, and drank from it. He put the mug down again, and looked up at the ceiling.

"In normal relationships," he said slowly, "between two people who aren't slaves, you have to ask. Both of them have to want sex. If the other person goes ahead and has sex with the other person without asking - without caring if they want sex - that's rape."

"I know that," Sherlock said, sounding annoyed. "I'm familiar with the criminal code. Rape or sexual assault. I may remind you that you are a slave and your sexual use does not fall under that aspect of the criminal code but under property damage."

John looked down at his hands. He stood up, picking up the plate, scooping up his own mug and - more carefully - Sherlock's still mostly-full mug of cooling tea. "I know that, Sherlock," he said. "You can fuck me however and whenever you want. But you can't make me want you."

"Where do you think you're going?"

"I'm going to clean the dishes," John said. "And then I'm going upstairs to my room. Unless you order me to do something else. I'm at your disposal."

He was conscious of Sherlock's stare at his back as he washed the dishes. He was waiting, tensely, for Sherlock to call him back as he climbed the stairs and sat down on the bed. He heard Sherlock moving around downstairs for a while. And then nothing.

After a while, John got up and opened the laptop. It had a built-in modem - those had not been standard before he joined the army - and there were three wifi networks with a very strong signal. One of them was a standard BT network. One was named 221bBakerStreet. Sherlock's, probably. The third was new. It was called... 

MYCROFT

It was password protected. On a whim. John tried SHERLOCK2010. 

The laptop was set up so that the email account activated whenever it was switched on. This had annoyed John every time he switched it on before to play Solitaire or Minesweeper, as it complained about not having Internet access with a series of popup messages. But with a quiet ping, an email arrived. From someone called Anthea. Addressed to him.

"Report to Mycroft Holmes using this email address."

John sat down at the desk and flexed his fingers. He didn't intend to tell Mycroft anything about the abortive pass, or Sherlock's wanting him to - what? - want him back? Mycroft might want to know, he'd asked John if he was sexually involved with Sherlock, but John didn't intend to tell him. It seemed too personal.

But there was a lot else to tell. The whole trip to Boscombe Valley. In mind-numbing detail. He'd tell Mycroft all about that.

_TBA_


	4. The Curtain Rises

After John emailed "Anthea" he shut down the laptop and lay down on the bed. 

The ceiling was cracked and dusty plaster, painted cream a long time ago. The skylight needed cleaning, he could do that next. But he didn't move.

He'd have been a slave for two weeks tomorrow. Harry probably knew by now: she'd have tried to call him on her birthday.

Sherlock wanted to use him for sex, and expected him to enjoy it. John put an arm over his face. 

_It could be worse._

He was supposed to have been in the cage for longer. Days. Weeks. For long enough that there wouldn't have been any of him left. The keepers in that room took slaves out of cages and did things to them and after a while, the impossibility of resistance would have warped his mind and he would have come to think of himself as a thing to be picked up and used. Mycroft Holmes had wanted a slave for his brother, and if Sherlock rejected him, John would eventually go back there.

John swallowed. Did he have to have sex with Sherlock? 

There was only one realistic answer to that. Sherlock had taken it for granted and Mycroft would too: anyone used to owning slaves would. If Sherlock wanted him to pretend he liked it, pretend so thoroughly Sherlock could tell himself it was real, then that was what ... John swallowed again. He'd have to do it. 

_It could be worse._

He lay there for a while, looking at the inside of his arm, before he realised that downstairs, just at the limits of hearing, John could hear two voices talking. He hadn't heard the door open or close downstairs, so it was most likely the TV, but -

The second voice was certainly Sherlock's. Perhaps he was talking back to the TV? There was the occasional sound of almost-music, as if he were playing with his violin. 

Then the first voice raised in volume suddenly. "John!" 

The first voice was Mycroft. 

John stood up. He ran his hands over his hair, braced himself, and headed down the stairs. 

Sherlock was sprawled full-length on the sofa, cradling his violin to his chest. Mycroft was sitting in the armchair. Neither brother looked at him.

"I can't," Sherlock said.

"'Can't'?" Mycroft said.

"The stuff I've got on is just too big," Sherlock said. He was flicking his fingers across the violin strings. "I can't spare the time."

"Never mind your usual trivia," Mycroft said, calmly, smoothly. "This is of national importance."

"How's the diet?" Sherlock asked, inconsequentially.

"Fine," Mycroft said, more heavily than the comment warranted. "Are you finding John useful?"

"He isn't boring."

"Good," Mycroft said, with a smile that made John shudder. "That's good, isn't it? You can use him to do your..." he grimaced, as if in distaste "...legwork."

"No," Sherlock said sharply. 

"What?" John said, almost instantaneously.

"I'm afraid my brother can be very intransigent," Mycroft said. He stood up, picking up a folder from the coffee table, and handed it to John. "Andrew West, known as Westie to his friends. A civil servant, found dead on the tracks at Battersea Station this morning with his head smashed in. The MOD is working on a new missile defence system - the Bruce-Partington Programme, it’s called.The plans for it were on a memory stick. We think West must have taken the memory stick. We can’t possibly risk it falling into the wrong hands."

 _That wasn't very clever,_ John thought. He looked at the folder, looked back at Mycroft, who was giving him the coldest look.

"It's not the only copy," he said, as if he could read John's thoughts. "But it is secret."

"Top secret?" John asked, forgetting to say "Sir."

"Very," Mycroft said. He looked back at Sherlock. "You've got to find those plans. Don’t make me order you."

"If you’re so keen, why don’t you investigate it?" Sherlock asked. He stood up, resting his violin on his shoulder. "John isn't leaving the house."

"I've noticed that you're being ... overprotective," Mycroft said. "John is a trained soldier and survivor. He hasn't received the conditioning all of your previous slaves have. If he's attacked, he can defend himself. What do you think I bought him for?"

"To spy on me. I see you finally found a wifi network name obvious enough for him to figure out how to use it."

"Receiving regular reports of the trouble you get yourself into is, of course, reassuring." Mycroft smiled like a shark. "Finding out who has targeted you in this way is of more urgent importance. Send John on errands. Take him with you when you do your 'detective' work. Let him publish little reports on your website."

"No."

"Don't make me order you, Sherlock."

Sherlock sucked in a breath, sounding annoyed. He lifted his bow and set it to the strings. "I'd like to see you try."

John felt as if he had been flapping like a gutted fish, though he seemed not to have moved from the spot. His mouth had fallen open.

"You bought me as ... bait? Sir," he added, as Mycroft briefly turned to look at him, his gaze coldly threatening. 

There was a moment's silence. Sherlock's bow seemed frozen on the strings of his violin as John's tongue seemed frozen in his mouth. 

"Think it over," Mycroft advised them both, and smiled, without showing his teeth. Probably because he had rows of them, all the way to the back of his throat, John thought, dazed. "See you very soon."

Sherlock started to play - of all things - the opening notes of _God Save The Queen_. John stood frozen, clutching the folder. He didn't hear the door close behind Mycroft.

"Put that folder down and go away," Sherlock said. He stopped playing with a discordant note in the middle of a bar.

John put the folder down on the coffee table. "He bought me as bait?"

"Do you need to have it repeated?" Sherlock asked, with irritation. "Don't ever go out without my explicit permission."

"For how long?"

"Until Mycroft realises that you are an expensive folly. My brother isn't easy to predict. Meantime, since you _didn't_ report to him that we'll be having sex, you either had second thoughts about your refusal or you believed that Mycroft would assist me in obtaining you - "

John recognised, by this time, the beginning of a long spew of words - frighteningly accurate, offensively particular - and held up his hand. "Wait a minute. Sherlock, wait. You think someone will try to kill me because I'm your slave?"

"Obviously."

"Well, why not let them?"

Sherlock gave him a frowning look. John's heart was thumping as hard as it had done in combat, but he felt very clear, very cold. His fingers and his feet were cold. "What have I got to lose? If Mycroft decides I'm no use to him, I'm going back to the processing cages, and I'd rather die first." He didn't want to die. But if he were back in that awful, silent, cage-filled room, to be crushed and broken and spat out a mallable thing, he already knew he would wish he was dead. "How long was it before your slaves got killed? It wasn't right away, was it?" If this meant he was let to go out, to walk around London almost freely, on his own or with Sherlock, running errands or following the detective on his cases, for months or even years - even if at the risk of his own life, that would be worth it. Worth it.

Sherlock was still looking at him, but his face had changed. His eyes were wider, there was a flash like light from inside them. "That's it," he said softly. "Stupid, stupid, _stupid!_ They weren't killed because they were my slaves!"

"What?"

"Jim was serving out a debt, he would have been free in a year or two. Angelo was nearly at the end of his service, he was planning to open a restaurant, he'd talk about it to anyone who'd listen. Kitty would have been free when I graduated, she was poisoned when I got the acceptance letter from Balliol. Carl was on the verge of qualifying for the Olympics. They weren't killed because they were my slaves, they were killed because they were about to be set free. John, what was your financial arrangement with Mycroft? How much is he paying down on your debt for each report on me?"

"He's actually doing that?" John was confused. His gambling debt - with interest piled on interest - was so huge, and the costs of processing a slave would only have made it larger - that he had never supposed he would be free. Slaves could buy themselves free, but John had never heard of it happening except for the occasional musician or sports star. 

Sherlock cast him an intrigued glance, reaching for his laptop. "Come here, sit down, pay attention," he said. By the time John sat down - a discreet distance away from him on the sofa - Sherlock had already pulled up a familiar website and was logging into it using a different access. 

"This is your record," Sherlock said. He was logged as property of Mycroft Holmes, a medical doctor, enslaved for debt, half a dozen photographs of him more naked than erotic - "And that's what Mycroft is paying down against your debt for each accurate report on my activities. If you continue to report at this rate, you'll be free within five years - "

"Five years - ?" John felt as if he had been punched in the gut. "Five years...?"

"Must you repeat everything I say? So, since my slaves become murder victims when they are within a year or two of freedom, with the exception of Kitty - but then she would have been effectively free when reading for a degree at Oxford as my companion, since I had no interest in her - which would imply that the killer has extreme inside access to information on me - oh, this is fascinating, John, this is much more interesting than a mere slave-killer targeting me! - We have to make public in some way that your reporting on me to Mycroft is leading to your freedom. We can set up a blog, you can write your reports to Mycroft there, we'll indicate in some way that you're earning your freedom with each one."

"What?"

"I should be able to estimate with some precision when the killer will target you." Sherlock was looking at John with the enthusiasm of a gourmand who sees the most delicious meal of his life appear on his plate. His breath was coming more quickly, his eyes were wide, he looked much more excited than when he had only been planning to rape John. 

"What about the case your brother wanted you to work on?" John said, hoping it might deflect Sherlock's interest. "He did say it was of national importance."

"Andrew West stole the missile plans, tried to sell them, got his head smashed in for his pains. End of story. The only mystery is this: why is my brother determined to bore me when someone else is being so delightfully interesting." His gaze sharpened: the gourmand had become a hunter.

John's mouth felt dry. He had almost braced himself to tell Sherlock, okay, let's do it. He'd forgotten Sherlock didn't care about his consent. 

A phone started ringing. It rang several times before Sherlock put his bow down on the seat beside him, and pulled his phone out of his jacket pocket. He glanced at the screen, and only then lifted the phone to answer the call.

"Sherlock Holmes," he said.

He listened for a few minutes. John could hear the man at the end of the phone, talking briskly, loudly. 

"Of course," Sherlock said at last. "How could I refuse?" He switched off the phone and carefully set the violin down next to the bow. He headed for the door.

"Lestrade at the Yard," he said, pulling on the long coat. "I've been summoned." He turned and glanced at John. "Get your coat. Come on."

"You want me to...?"

"Of course," Sherlock said. "From now on, as far as the Yard and everyone else is concerned, I’d be lost without my blogger."

John followed Sherlock down the stairs. He was outside, in daylight, and Sherlock wasn't even making any comments about putting him on a leash. With a sweep of one arm, Sherlock seemed to call a taxi out of nowhere, and told the driver "New Scotland Yard. And hurry."

The ride to NSY took twelve minutes. Sherlock neither spoke to nor looked at John. He swept into the building, and John stayed close to him. No one asked either of them for ID. John's collar didn't seem to have tripped any alarms on the way in. 

They reached a second-floor office, and a policewoman John vaguely remembered greeted Sherlock with "Hello, freak."

Sherlock's voice was reserved and polite. "I'm here to see Detective Inspector Lestrade."

"Why?"

"I was invited," Sherlock said. He still sounded mild and polite.

"Why?"

"I think he wants me to take a look at some fanmail," Sherlock said, this time a faint hint of sarcasm breathing through.

"Who’s this?" 

"Colleague of mine, Doctor Watson," Sherlock said. "Doctor Watson, Sergeant Sally Donovan. Old friend."

"A colleague?" Sergeant Donovan sounded far more than faintly sarcastic. She turned to John. "How did he get a colleague? Did you follow him home?" She frowned at him. "Wait - "

"No," Sherlock said. "Lestrade invited me."

"But not your slave, freak," Donovan said.

"Why don't you ask Lestrade that?" Sherlock asked. Without looking, his hand gripped at John's upper arm. "I think he wants to see me."

Without taking her eyes off John, Donovan lifted her phone. "Freak's here. He's brought his slave."

A minute later, the tall grey-haired man appeared from an inner office. "Right, there you are. Come in - " he glanced at John. "Both of you."

There was a white envelope lying on the desk. Lestrade sat down behind it, and looked up at John. "I've got some questions," he said. "Apparently I visited Herefordshire county jail last week. I showed ID and signed in for myself and Sherlock Holmes." He glanced at Sherlock. "The prison authorities described Sherlock to a T, but they said I was a short man, fair hair, walked with a limp." Lestrade lifted his hands. "Now the funny thing is, that describes you better than it does me. Sherlock take you with him when he made that trip to Herefordshire, did he?"

"Surely this isn't relevant," Sherlock said, querulously.

"No, it isn't," Lestrade agreed. "But it won't hurt to wait five minutes while we sort this one out. Now I'm not going to ask you if you signed in to the prison using my ID, because if I did ask you that and you refused to answer, I'd be legally obliged to torture you til you confessed, and I don't get a kick out of that. But just as a word of warning: if Sherlock ever hands you a NSY ID and tells you to impersonate a police officer, it will save a lot of trouble in the long run if you tell him you won't do it, because the penalty for a slave impersonating a police officer is flogging and branding in the face."

John put his hand up to his face, involuntarily, and looked at Sherlock, who stared down his nose at Lestrade and said coldly, "What about this envelope? Where did you find it?"

"Your old flat in Montague Street. What's left of it."

"What?"

"Haven't you been watching the news? There was an explosion in the early hours of this morning. Made to look like a gas main. Wasn't hardly anything left of the place except a strong box - a very strong box - and inside it was this." He pointed at the envelope. Across the front in delicate script was written the words SHERLOCK HOLMES.

"You haven’t opened it?"

"It's addressed to you, isn't it? We've X-rayed it. It's not booby-trapped. No fingerprints."

Sherlock switched on the lamp on Lestrade's desk. It cast a pool of very bright light, which he directed at the envelope. "Nice stationery," Sherlock said thoughtfully. "Bohemian."

"What?" 

"From the Czech Republic. She used a fountain pen. A Parker Duofold – iridium nib."

"'She?'" Lestrade inquired.

"Obviously."

 _Branded in the face,_ John thought. He clenched his hands at his sides. _Christ._ And then, as he had thought sporadically since Sherlock told him, since Sherlock showed him the records, the payments already made, _Five years._ It was both wonderful and terrible: to know he could be free in five years, to have that dangled in front of him like hope when he had thought there was none.

Sherlock picked up a steel letter-opener from a pen holder on the desk and carefully slit the envelope open, peering inside. He actually looked a little surprised. He produced a pink smartphone. 

"This means something to you?" Lestrade said.

"Jennifer Wilson's phone," Sherlock said. "Obviously not the same phone, this one's brand new. Someone’s gone to a lot of trouble to make it look like the same phone, though."

"The fourth serial suicide," Lestrade said. "But why her?"

Sherlock didn't answer. He switched the phone on. A recorded voice said "You have one new message."

The message was an edited version of the Greenwich Time Signal: four short pips and one longer one. 

"Is that it?" John was startled enough to say out it out loud, and Sherlock glanced at him. "No. That’s not it." He turned the phone - there was a picture of a room on the screen - and held it out for Lestrade to say. 

"What the hell are we supposed to make of that? An estate agent's photo and the bloody Greenwich pips!" Lestrade said.

"It's a warning."

Sherlock looked down at the photo. His face had a reserved, secret look. "Some secret societies used to send dried melon seeds, orange pips, things like that. Five pips. They’re warning us it's going to happen again. And I've seen this place before."

"Hang on," John said, "What's going to happen again?"

"Pay attention, John! Lestrade told you: someone blew up the Montgomery Street apartment. They obviously knew I'd moved out. They just wanted to get my attention." He raised his hands, as if signalling. "Boom!" He turned and headed out the door without a word of goodbye: John headed after him. He could not afford to get separated from Sherlock, here of all places. He heard Lestrade grab his coat and head out behind them.

John took the facing seat in the taxi back to Baker Street. He was sitting opposite Lestrade, who was looking at him quite intently. John wondered, self-consciously, if Lestrade expected him to kneel on the floor of the taxi, and glanced at Sherlock, who was staring out of the window, ignoring them both.

Lestrade cleared his throat. "One thing that apparently 'I' did in Hereford county jail," he said. "I told the prison officials that the suspect remanded for trial had a boyfriend in Bristol who the young man needed to get in touch with."

John said nothing. He rubbed his face.

"They were very relieved to have that information," Lestrade said. "The boy was suspected of murdering his father, who was his only relative, so they were a bit stuck about who to tell that he was in jail. Course, then the neighbour confessed - "

"He confessed?" John was startled. He looked at Sherlock, whose phone held a recording of the confession.

"Mr John Turner confessed. Said he'd talked it through with his daughter and she'd convinced him he had to speak out. There's health concerns about will he be able to stand his trial, and the son's still in prison on remand because they have to release him with due process, but it all seems to have cleared up very neatly, which makes me think Sherlock had something to do with it. Him and his stolen IDs. I know he put you up to it, and I don't want you to say anything to me, but ..." Lestrade shrugged very largely. "I've known him for five years. He's always like this."

"So why do you put up with him?" John asked,

"Because Sherlock's effective, and I'm desperate," Lestrade said, quite frankly. "And because he's a great man. And I think maybe one day, if we’re very, very _lucky_ , he might even be a good one."

Lestrade glanced at Sherlock, who said nothing and didn't look back at him. John wasn't even sure he'd heard. The taxi stopped and Sherlock left the cab without paying the fare: Lestrade paid it, with a resigned shrug, collecting a receipt from the driver. 

Sherlock was heading for the basement. He got the keys off Mrs Hudson, who told them about the mould and warned them to be careful - she hadn't been able to get a tenant for the downstairs flat. Apparently Sherlock had looked at it before he moved in. 

"The door's been opened recently," Sherlock said. He went in and John and Lestrade followed him. Down a narrow flight of dark, dank stairs. The living-room's skylight was set in the street above. In the centre of the floor there was a pair of white trainers, set together, toes toward the door, as if the invisible owner might walk out into the world. 

Sherlock crouched there for a moment, and then knelt up and fished the pink smartphone out of the pocket of his coat. "Hello?" He paused. "Who’s this? Who’s talking? Why are you crying?"

He paused. From the phone, faint and far away, John could hear a noise like sobbing. 

"The curtain rises," Sherlock said at last.

"What?" John said.

Sherlock gave him an empty-eyed look. "Nothing."

"No, what did you mean?"

Sherlock turned to look at him, He switched on the speaker of his phone. He said, remote and even, "I've been expecting this for some time."

A woman's voice, sobbing, said from the phone "Twelve hours to solve ... my puzzle, Sherlock ..." Her voice was broken, sobbing. "or I’m going ... to be ... so naughty."

The phone went dead. 

"Puzzle?" Lestrade said. "Sherlock, what the hell do you mean, you've been expecting this?"

"There's a hostage," Sherlock said. He sounded calm and uninvolved. "I imagine that she's shut inside a car with a bomb that could go off at any moment and will be exploded in twelve hours if I don't solve the puzzle presented by these shoes, there will be another 'boom'. She's in a supermarket car park, judging by the ambient noise, but I can't tell where."

"Do you know who did this?" Lestrade demanded.

"Obviously not," Sherlock said coldly. "But I do have theories. None of which are of any value without more data. I need an evidence bag for these shoes."

"They were left by the Montague Street bomber?" Lestrade asked.

Sherlock considered. "More likely, both the Montague Street bomber and the person who left these shoes here were working for the same man. But the hostage in the supermarket car park, she'll be directly in touch with the spider."

"But they're just shoes," John said. He hadn't touched them, but he'd looked them over as closely as possible. Retro trainers, new-ish, white. Traces of blue ink where someone had written something in biro, worn away. They belonged to a boy with big feet. 

Just at the same time, Lestrade said "Spider?"

"Who paid the taxi driver to commit the murders, Lestrade? The money was real, it was in his bank account, he may have been mad but _the money was real_." Sherlock sounded suddenly angry. "I have been at pains you do not know about to trace that money, I have summoned resources your petty policing knows nothing of, and I cannot. We are dealing with a spider of crime whose web pervades London. Again and again in cases of the most varying sorts - forgery cases, robberies, murders - I have felt the presence of this spider, and I have deduced his action in many of those undiscovered crimes in which I have not been personally consulted. I know he exists, Lestrade - the name no one mentions, the man no one's heard of, a genius, a philosopher, an abstract thinker. He has a brain of the first order, an intellect equal to my own, and this is _his_ game." He seemed to become aware that Lestrade and John were both staring at him, and his face and voice froze tight again. "I need an evidence bag for these shoes. John, come with me."

"Sherlock!" Lestrade's bellow stopped John in his tracks, and Sherlock a moment later. He turned and looked at Lestrade.

"Suppose you're right. Why's he doing all this? What's his motive?"

Sherlock glanced down, then up. "I'm not the only one who gets bored."

Sherlock swept into the apartment, turned, and pushed John down to sit in the armchair. He straddled John's knees and bent over him, taking John's face in both of his hands and examining him almost clinically.

"All that matters to me is the work. Without that my brain rots," Sherlock said, speaking almost intimately. "This case will come to an end, and then I'll want you. I suggest you think through your terms of surrender."

John swallowed. His hands clenched on the arms of his chair. "Did you know I could be branded in the face if they found out a slave used Lestrade's ID?" His lips were dry.

Sherlock's thumbs moved on John's cheekbones, like cat's paws deciding where to sink in. "Mycroft would never let that happen to his property."

Sherlock's phone beeped. He let go and stepped back, glancing at the screen of the phone and deleting the message in the same moment. "Bag the shoes, return the keys to Mrs Hudson, meet me outside in five minutes."

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for all the lovely comments and kudos! Right, here we go... This is eventually going to be an AU retelling of the Great Game, believe it or not, though I got a TINY bit sidetracked by a case in the second chapter....


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